Carnivore : Hemlock Grove story
by Malakaii
Summary: It appears that the world is dying around Emery Cole every time she steps outside. Dodging one accusation to the next and under the violent outburst of her Army veteran sister, Emery hopes the culprit of these grizzly murders stops or at least gets caught. Then she inexplicably watches a boy shed into a wolf. What the hell is going on in HG? RomanxOCxPeterxMiranda
1. Chapter 1

Bruised eyes, mussed hair, and a split lip. Not entirely how Emery had pictured looking just before she was entered into public school. But there she was, third period in and miserable. Her ragged appearance granted her plenty of side glances and double takes. Was it the unkept blonde hair she had tied in a messy bun about her head? Or the dark eyes, set above faint bruises? Perhaps, it was the cut along her upper lip that, when questioned, was answered with a nervous laugh and wave off of her hand? Whatever it was, it had induced a pressure behind her eyes, foretelling an imminent headache and it wasn't even lunch time.

Pressing the tip of her fingers into her temples, Emery ran them in circles as she closed her eyes and warded off the dull ache. The following class was something she looked forward to, only because it was normally quiet and art, to say the least, was definitely her cup of tea. Once the bell rang, and the surrounding students began gathering their belongings, Emery was already out of the door and ambling her way towards the art building. With a hoodie too big for her lanky frame, the sleeves extended passed her arms and gave her the lazy, but comfortable appearance. Albeit, Emery was neither lazy, nor comfortable, it was all she had and besides, not being able to afford new clothes for school wasn't something she would be advertising to every glance that came her way. She didn't need to explain herself to anyone.

Trudging through the doorway into the vast room that was her art class, Emery eyed an empty table near the window. The desk were heavily mounted steel frames, bolted into the floor. Each table catered to two students and were turned at an angle that allowed a spacious middle aisle for walking. She wasn't sure if the actual art portion of the class she enjoyed the most, or the breathing room it granted. Regardless, Emery still found herself looking forward to this hour, even though it was only Wednesday, and her third day of school.

As the students began funneling into the classroom and filling up the seats, Emery pulled up her backpack into her lap and started rummaging through it's contents. All she needed was a pen as she shoved her entire arm into the confines of her black JanSport and jerked it around. Nearly burying her head into the shadows of the backpack as she sought out a writing utensil, she hadn't noticed the figure quietly seat themselves next to her.

"Gotcha," she muttered into her chest as her fingers snagged the cylindrical shape of a pen. Emery lifted her head from the backpack, ready to toss the it onto the ground and prepare for class when she caught sight of the the massive frame seated next to her with broad shoulders and black hair. It was startling for Emery, so much that the backpack slipped from her lap just as her rump caught the smooth edge of the stool. Together, Emery and her JanSport spilled to the floor in a heap. The stool rocked on it's uneven legs before tilting too far and crashing to the tile floor.

The sudden clamor and disorder silenced the hum of chatter across the room as Emery sat up in embarrassment.

A snicker.

A whisper.

Eventually, the hushed giggling took hold as Emery pulled her legs inward so she could begin collecting her scattered school supplies. For whatever reason, she glanced up with a flushed face and burning eyes towards the dark figure who startled her.

_Do not cry_, Emery chided to herself as she bit the inside of her cheek painfully, but as soon as her gaze connected to the kind eyes, now lowering themselves gently to the floor with bandaged hands and a cell that dangled from a lanyard around her neck, Emery felt the warm trails run down the sides of her face.

"Thanks," Emery whispered as their hands worked around one another, gathering the splayed spiral notebooks and pens. She reached out and snagged her backpack, dragging it to her side as they tossed the contents into it carelessly.

The dark haired girl, masking most of her face with a curtain of black hair, offered Emery an apologetic smile until the mess was cleared. They stood in unison, and Emery found herself fighting to notice just how fucking _tall_ this girl actually was.

Emery was only 163 inches, but then again, she was only 17, right? She had time to grow…

Right?

Together, they erected her toppled chair and seated in silence just as the teacher turned towards her book shelf and plucked a red brick from the rows.

What was once Emery's favorite hour, turned to be the worst and most dreaded in under 6 seconds flat. Though, the error of her ways had passed and turned long forgotten, the heat along her cheeks and the fluttering of her heart still stayed.

As the teacher explained the various ways to capture to angle and essence of leaves, Emery tore a small slip of paper out and jotted down an apology before sliding the note towards her left and into the view of the dark-haired girl.

A slow, bandaged hand reached up and took the note, a moment passed as she read Emery's handwriting.

_Forgive my behavior_, it read, _it seems I'm a leper here, I wasn't expecting company at my desk._

The girl tucked it under her spiral and returned her attention towards the teacher once more.

_God, I'm such an asshole, _Emery internally sighed as her face grew hot a second time. She folded her arms together and laid her head down to hide her obvious mortification.

A soft tap along Emery's shoulder and her eyes snapped open. She sprang upright with a gasp, not realizing she had drifted to sleep.

Emery glanced towards the figure next to her, the same dark-haired girl from before. The entire room was emptied out, even the teacher was gone. It was just Emery and her.

"Oh my God," she palmed her forehead and sighed. " I didn't know I fell asleep."

A smile lifted the girls features as she reached for the cell phone draped around her neck. With a stylus Emery hadn't noticed until now, she pecked away at the screen until a disembodied voice spoke in the girl's stead.

"I didn't want to wake you, you obviously needed it." She replied.

Emery gave a faint laugh and said, "I missed the entire class though."

A shrug lifted the girl's broad shoulders before she typed a new message. "An hour about leaves would put anyone to sleep."

This made Emery laugh sincerely. "Well, thanks for not leaving me here...What's your name?"

She typed quickly, "Shelley," the artificial voice answered.

With a lingering smile, Emery felt a flicker of hope. "Shelley," she echoed, "It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Emery."


	2. Chapter 2

The evening had struck but Emery still hadn't made it home. Not because of some time consuming errands, or after school tutorials, but because she feared what was awaiting her behind the rickety screen door.

Standing out by the road, next to a decrepit and rusted mailbox, Emery eyed the dark windows and listened to the eery silence that surrounded her mobile home.

Riley was inside, she knew this much. Not because her truck was in the same spot Emery had saw it in this morning, but because Riley never went anywhere, or did anything, Emery did.

Emery was the maid, the cook, the maintenance man when things leaked, smoked, or sparked when they weren't supposed to. Albeit, Emery had made trips to and fro plenty of times, this would be the first week she was gone for more than 6 hours at a time, if that. Eight hours left attended, Riley could be up to anything, and this wasn't a field day or any degree of adventure. Emery knew this by experience.

Riley had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from her time in the Army. Emery couldn't tell at the top of her head how many tours Riley endured in the Middle East, but it was enough to keep in mind that her sister wouldn't always be herself. Emery narrowed her eyes to the subtle movement as the curtains drew back before falling into place again. This caused her heart to thud with trepidation. Riley was waiting for her to come inside, not with hugs or kisses either.

Like a bruised being pressed, Emery's attention centered on the split along her lip, remembering the first time she walked in on an episode she wasn't prepared for. She thought Riley was sleepwalking and catered to that by carefully steering her back to her bedroom, but Riley wasn't sleep, not even. Not to mention, most sleepwalkers don't know martial arts, or have a mean right hook. Emery shouldn't have touched her at all, she thought. She should have left her alone in the bathroom, in full battle dress, rambling off her Soldier's Creed as she pretended to hold her M16 and rock back and forth while underneath an ice cold shower.

Emery knew better now. She turned away from the trailer home as her hands stuffed into her jean's pockets. A park was down a ways, she'd wait there until nightfall. Perhaps, Riley would call it a night or maybe snap out of it before Emery returned. It wasn't like she'd get a wink of sleep, any way. For the meantime, she listened to the scuffing footsteps of her sneakers against the cracking asphalt. Having peeled off her hoodie, she stuffed it in the hook of her elbow and kept her head down until Kilderry Park came into view.

Emery dreaded the sound of approaching cars. The road she traveled along hadn't much of a shoulder to fend from. It was that, or the ditch, so overgrown with thorns and ferns, she feared the thistles and bracken would shred her jeans apart. Already sporting holes around her knobby knees, the fabric held on with but a prayer. It was her last pair, anyway, the champions of her scarce wardrobe. She needed to make them last until she got a job.

As the sun winded down along the horizon, Emery noted the increase in traffic. Some were courteous enough to grant her a little space as they flew passed, other's took it into the opposite lane entirely. She offered a half hearted wave when they did. By this alone, she felt like Hemlock wasn't so bad. Perhaps, the citizens of the industrialized community weren't the ostentatious kind after all.

As Emery smiled inwardly, allowing more trickles of hope to enter her mind, she heard another car on approach. Up ahead, the road curved to the right and disappeared behind a bend of trees, obscuring the oncoming vehicle from Emery's sight. She couldn't anticipate them if she couldn't see them, and by the quickening volume, she knew they were approaching fast. As the car whipped around the curve, blaring the radio at full capacity, Emery hastily hopped into the ditch while maintaining a nonchalant traipse through the underbrush. The sports car, a red convertible with the top down, laid on the horn as they flew passed.

Out of reaction, Emery tossed her arms up and shot the car a puzzled look. A male was driving, but she couldn't gauge their age, or their problem. She wasn't even in the damn way.

It wasn't too much longer until Kilderry park was beneath her feet. Still perturbed from the rudeness along the way, she hadn't taken notice that sun had finally disappeared, though the sky was still a mixture of blue and purple. Emery spotted a bench on the far side that faced the darkening grove and headed for it. Once there, she plopped down and pulled her feet into an Indian style position where she would wait.

It was then that Emery noticed the stars glittering along the indigo colored sky, fending off the twilight and blending it with shades and hues of violet.

Sighing, she leaned back and stretched her arms out against the benches backrest and watched for fleeting lights of falling stars. Pennsylvania's was still battling over seasonal hold. The summer hadn't quite had it's fill, but fall was arriving and fast. Now that the sun had gone below the horizon, it wasn't long until the chill came too. Bumps rose along Emery's arms as she sat back, still staring longingly above and biding more time. She rose her head up and gathered the hoodie next to her. Slipping her arms into the sleeves, she was just about don the fabric when the sound of a distant train emerged. It's horn echoed across the night air, lingering above the trees. Emery paused to listen, for something else was scratching at her awareness.

She strained her ears against the locomotives warning as another interference mingled with it's call, something closer to Emery.

A scream, frantic and laced with heedy panic bled out as the sound of the train's air horn died down.

Emery's eyes sought the source of the sound, reducing the breadth by eyeing across the parks vast lawn near the edge of the grove, until out from it's shadows a figure sprang.

It was a girl at a dead sprint, tossing looks over her shoulder as to whatever chased at her wake. But Emery saw nothing trailing behind and had already rose to her feet in alarm. It was obvious the girl was in a panic. Emery could hear her hyperventilating from across Kilderry. She was sure the night's shadows obscured her, for the girl made no indication that she noticed Emery at all. She fell short of a tiny house that decorated Kilderry park, clambering forth for the safety within. Emery took several retreating steps while maintaining a close observation as the girl disappeared into the shadows of the play house.

For a moment, Emery considered calling out and asking her what she was running from. It wasn't until her attention was diverted back to the edge of the grove from where the girl appeared, that things turned from bad to worse. Something was, indeed, following. When it emerged from the wall of trees, snarling and snapping, and on all four legs, Emery considered, perhaps, she was insane. Maybe PTSD was contagious and she lived in a fantasy world, after all. She could live with this, she thought, as her eyes watched the monster tear across Kilderry park, narrowing in on it's prey with snapping joules she could hear from where she stood.

Before she realized her actions, Emery was facing the road again.

Away from the blood curdling screams, from the gushing sound of blood splattering and teeth gnashing. The hacking and chomping and crunching of bone against bone, Emery ran until her pounding feet and gasping breath was all that she heard. She was roughly five miles from her mobile home.

Collapsing at the same time worn and rusted coated mailbox, Emery's knees sank into the gravel. She ignored the tiny bites of pain as the rocks, sharp along their edges, bore into her bare knees. Still maintaining a forward movement, she dug her hands into the cold driveway and clambered towards her front porch. Pushing off with her hands, she managed to stand and mount the steps in a single stride. Reaching for the door, Emery faltered there, stuck between whatever monster she witnessed at Kilderry park and whatever monster awaited her inside. Another fear rose, a familiar one though. But it wasn't enough to stave off the newly acquired trepidation she had encountered five miles back.

Yanking the door open without another second burned, Emery stepped into the thick darkness and slammed the door behind her, locking every available bolt her fingers could find. She stepped away as soon as the metal slid into place, and felt the cold metallic pressure of an M16 rifle press against her left temple.


	3. Chapter 3

Sounds of thudding, coupled with various volumes of shouting, emitted from the shanty mobile home. From inside, a pair of women, both different in age and mental maturity, fought to maintain advantage. One, the age of 17 with a spirit of 40, was losing this battle.

Emery's back met the poorly fabricated wall with enough force to send her through it and onto the other side. She hadn't braced for it either. The brunt of it expelled her lungs of air like a balloon against a sharp needle as she sank to the floor onto her buttocks.

Riley was screaming about something. Emery had stopped listened the moment she realized it wasn't the barrel of a semi-automatic rifle pressed against her flesh, but a pipe her sister had picked up somewhere, somehow. The immediate danger was over. Now Emery just had to ride the destructive behavior to it's end until Riley tuckered herself out. Along her lips and chin was Emery's own blood. It's source, the right nostril. She could taste it's coppery tang along her tongue and at the back of her throat. She wanted to spit, to hack up the collected mucus and spit it, but that would mean walking away from Riley and that would only prolong her hysterical rage and they were so close to the end.

Emery's right brow was swollen but not bleeding, thankfully. She was sure the pipe had broken the skin when Riley swung it against her. Perhaps not. A tenderness lingered along the same eye, increasing with sensitivity the more she focused on it.

Before her, Riley continued to batter Emery's being, her very existence with cutting remarks and malignant titles. Emery knew better than to listen, but sometimes, a few words would slip through and embed into her mind.

_Mistake._

_Whore._

_Idiot._

_Shitbag._

Emery knew 'shitbag' excessively well. Riley had picked up insults along her militant endeavors and would write Emery during her tours and would refer to other comrades as such. This was, of course, when Riley hadn't been exposed to various degrees of slaughter and fire fights, and still had a meaningful and loving relationship. You know, like most sisters.

During these episodes, when Riley took out her tumultuous self-hate, and traumatic relapses, Emery tried to come to terms with it all. Were these things she heard during her stay within the burning streets of Fallujah? Did her comrades, other sergeants, privates, and superior officers, relay these malevolent slanders and backlashes onto her? Emery knew Riley was one of the few females induced into combat. The American military had traditionally kept women from the front lines. But as the country turned more unorthodox during the years, little by little, more women slipped through the cracks and now stormed the beaches and parachuted out of helicopters alongside their male counterparts.

With these belittling regards and hateful disposition, Emery wouldn't be surprised if it was because Riley had been raped and abused overseas. Fighting a war against both sides would tear even the strongest down. Did Emery condone this? Not at all, but fighting back would only result into a longer episode, or a heavier relapse. Emery had never served in the armed forces, but it didn't mean she wasn't getting flack from those around her who did. If she had been 'boots on the ground' as they referred to deploying to the Middle East, perhaps she could relate better and it wouldn't be so hard to understand. But even then, she'd probably be just as mad as her sister, Riley.

With all this taken into account, Emery remained beneath the onslaught of punches and throes of insult. She brought her arms up and caged the area around her head as soon as the blows went from her torso to her head. Tomorrow was already going to be an interesting day.

* * *

><p>Emery felt sick to her stomach.<p>

The moment she arrived to school, she felt the uncomfortable silence that surrounded the campus. Much was being discussed as she maneuvered her way to first period, a World History class with Mr. McKinley, an old man who loved to slap his knee and yawp , "Jalapena!" when things got exciting. Today though, would call for no such excitement.

"They couldn't find the rest of her body…," she heard in passing.

"Disemboweled and strung across Kilderry park…," another student expressed ghastly while her friends in unison cupped a hand over their gaping mouths.

Emery shuffled her way into the classroom and immediately sat down. She pulled her Jansport into her lap and hid her face. Her lip had been reopened and felt as if it were getting infected while her entire body ached from what Riley had done. Tossing her hood over her head, Emery peered above her folded arms as more students funneled into McKinley's class.

For a fleeting moment, the teacher and Emery made eye contact. He grimaced without realizing it, reminding Emery that it _was_ that obvious. She dipped her head back into the safety of her folded arms and backpack and respired heavily.

Class began, but no one was interested in the Battle of Midway, or that it was the turning point of Naval history. Not even Emery.

She hadn't slept the following night, but how could she? Now, sitting amidst other pupils who only wished to discuss the disappearance and quick macabre discovery of a girl by the name of Brooke Bluebell, Emery couldn't shut her eyes without seeing her panic stricken face, or hear the chomping and crunching sounds that followed.

Her stomach twisted painfully from the climbing anxiety and he leg began to bounce by the ball of her foot.

The rest of the day dragged along. Every passing second, more excruciating and arduous than the last. And of course, art was no longer looked forward too, even though Shelley had quickly taken to Emery like she had hoped.

Emery sat in her traditional spot and stared out into the parking lot from the nearest window and into the tree line just on the other side. She could hear Shelley's heavy footfalls and the sound of her laborious breathing as she entered the classroom. Emery tensed as Shelley drew her chair out from beneath the table, dragging the legs across the tile.

_Ignore me today, Shelly. Please._ Emery mentally willed, pulling her arms tightly around her chest.

But when Emery felt the soft pat along her arm, she couldn't bring herself to pretend that Shelley wasn't there. Reluctantly, Emery turned away from the window and offered the dark-haired giant a forced smile. She watched Shelley's only visible eye dart across her face, noting the bruises and scrapes as she did.

Frantically, Shelley pawed for the cellphone draped around her neck. Emery responded by lifting her own hand and laying it down on the cell just as Shelley produced the stylus.

"I don't want to talk about it," Emery expressed softly.

Shelley made a disconcerting sound like reminded Emery of a distressed kitten. She dropped her bandaged hands into her lap and offered a defeated nod in return.

Today's lesson was not about leaves, but branches and how to maintain the gnarled and harvest feel. Emery knew well about the characteristics of boney and decaying things. She hadn't ever kept a journal, for words were not crude enough to capture the turmoil she bottled up inside, but painting and drawing, however, proved to be fruitful and reflected just how raw and fragmented her life felt, especially after moving in with her older sister, Riley.

Emery watched as Shelley delicately held the brushed between her wrapped fingers. Her strokes of red and orange, dotting leaves across the canvas, were slow and methodical. But when it came to the time to begin her branches, she efforts were quakey and not nearly as controlled.

Emery dipped her brush into a dark brown and reached across Shelley. Together, they watched as Emery drug her brush along the parcel, making subtle edges and crooks to her trees. Before long, she had half the trunk and enough roots to consider it complete. But Emery's efforts weren't so that Shelley didn't have to do any of the work. She took Shelley's brush, dipped it in the same brown paint, and handed it over. Shelley took it while Emery placed her hand over hers, she aided it along, directing when and how to decide on the bends and throes of Shelley's limbs.

When the period was over by the sound of the bell, Shelley and Emery remained seated. When the classroom emptied out, Shelley silently reached for her stylus and phone, and pecked away at the screen.

"What happened to you?" The artificial voice inquired. "Are you alright?"

Emery took a deep breath and looked towards the window again. She couldn't find the words to answer Shelley, not without indulging too much of her hideous personal life, or sounding like a batshit lunatic. How would she even go about mentioning she had seen a glimpse of whatever decided to make a meal out of Brooke Bluebell? She settled it with a shake of her head.

"Is there anything I can do?"

Again, no.

Shelley stood and began to gather her things, she slid the strap upon her shoulder and took a hold of a pen that resided along the table. Using the edge of her canvas, she ripped a piece free and jotted something down. Shelley righted to her full seven foot stature and picked up her phone again.

"Please, write me." She said.

Emery scoffed, "I don't own a computer."

When Shelley walked away, Emery glanced closer to the torn paper.

It wasn't an email, but an physical address.

Perhaps, a safe haven was in the near future.

It was Emery's turn to gather her things and head for lunch. Only a few minutes had passed since the first bell, so the hallways were still congested with students and hummed with more grim talk of Brooke. Just as Emery exited her art class, she froze.

In the midst of churning bodies, she saw him.

Tall and pale with light brown hair slicked back, Emery found she couldn't pull away from his emerald glare. But it wasn't out of desire that she couldn't break the stare, he had a hold of her, anchoring her in position. On opposite ends of the hall, they held each other's gaze. She recognized him immediately as the red sports car she saw last night and questioned how she hadn't noticed him about the campus sooner.

And then she saw it in his eyes, could see the cogs turning as he made the connection between Emery and the dead girl at Kilderry park. With the bruises and scuffs, the scrapes and disheveled appearance, Emery looked the part of a killer.


	4. Chapter 4

"What happened to your face?"

The sudden proximity of the voice startled Emery as she stood near the edge of the sidewalk. She was watching the boy from earlier approach his luxurious red sports car. A Jaguar, she presumed. He knew she was there, and knew she was watching. With a parting scowl, he slumped into his red convertible and revved the engine to life. Emery broke away to glance at the newcomer as the Jaguar disappeared from the lot.

It was a girl Emery assumed around the age of fourteen with thick unruly brown hair and a both arms clutching a notebook to her chest. She exuded enough innocence to both annoy Emery and make her uncomfortable.

Emery scoffed, "Aren't you fucking subtle?" She watched the girl pull the journal closer and glance across the parking lot.

"A lot of people are talking," she added before settling her gaze back onto Emery.

"I bet they are." Emery muttered, stepping down from the sidewalk and onto the parking lot. She started walking away.

"Aren't you wondering what they're saying?" She heard the girl's voice call out.

Emery paused mid stride and glanced back towards the girl. With a defeated flop to her arms, she sighed. "Enlighten me then."

"A senior's saying he saw you at Kilderry Park the night the Penrose girl was murdered."

A heavy dread sank into the pit of Emery's stomach as she watched and listened. Had someone seen her that night? Did they witness her cowardice as the girl cried out for mercy while she turned and ran? She felt her insides twist with anxiety as her throat went dry.

"I have to get home." Emery muttered as she turned back away.

"What does that matter? Were you or weren't you?" The girl replied with a tiny voice, almost too timid for such a challenging statement.

Emery huffed a nervous laugh. She dropped her head back against her shoulders and groaned at the sky. Taking a quick deep breath, she shot the brunette a casually glance. "Look, I don't have time for rumors and "he said, she said" OK? Tell your boyfriend he doesn't know what he saw." Emery turned away for a second time and started walking.

"Why are you so beat up then? Did Brooke do that to you when before you killed her?"

Emery spun around and marched towards the frizzy haired girl at the drop of a dime. She snagged the tiny miscreant by the collar and yanked her down from the sidewalk. The journal fell to the concrete as she stumbled forward into Emery's hold.

Emery held her there without the words to express. An anger she only felt after a beating from Riley emerged like an ugly snake rearing it's head. She even considered punching her, spitting in her face, knocking her to the concrete and clobbering her until she couldn't see from either eye, but this would only expel her from school, leaving her unattended and under the knuckle of Riley.

_This fucking bitch_, Emery thought with clenched teeth. Her fists, filled with the fabric of the student's blouse, shook with white-knuckled fury while the girl stared wide eyed and stunned.

She hadn't a clue what Emery went through to own these scars, theses bruises, and how long it took for her to come to these terms. Emery felt her teeth grinding against each other as her brown eyes stared into the student's face. She had a million things to say, but not a single word could formulate upon her tongue. She shoved the little girl back and stepped away with pursed lips and a flexing jaw.

Emery turned on her heels and proceeded across the parking lot for a third time.

"You're not going to get away with it!" She heard the girl call towards her back

* * *

><p>Emery couldn't think as the soles of her boots sank inches into the mud of the creek's soft bank. She lost track of time during her silent castigation and had merely stumbled upon the meek brook where she decided to take a break. The sun had descended, making the shadow around the grove thick and nearly impenetrable. Though many thoughts flooded her head, there was always the same dread at the back of her mind. Like a scratch that couldn't be satisfied; the inevitable trip back home. If she were lucky, Riley would be passed out drunk or strung out on some new drug Hemlock had produced over night. Which ever happened, she just wanted Riley indisposed and out of the way long enough to get some shut eye. Another thought that lingered was the small girl she met just after school. If any rumor's were smoldering before, they were certainly set ablaze now. Not only would the girl have something to deliver to the entire school body, but any bystanders would have a two cents to tell.<p>

The sound of a nearby screen door slamming shut brought Emery out of her daze. She blinked and glanced around, looking down towards the running creek water that slipped passed just before her toes. This was the opposite direction of her home, she realized. It'd take her at least an hour to make it back on foot. The sun would be gone by the that time. With a sullen sigh, she closed her eyes and listened to the thicket surrounding her. Why couldn't she just have remained home schooled, like previously planned? She wiggled her toes which were falling numb under the steel toe boots and pressing cold weather. The more Emery thought about Riley and her unpredictable behavior, the angrier Emery felt about lashing out on the girl at school. She only wanted justice for her friend, even if they weren't friends, one wouldn't be too keen on allowing a murder to go unnoticed, especially in such a small town. Emery was still a new face to majority of the student body, an outsider.

With a heavy respire, Emery shrugged off the frustration. She didn't want to go home, or to whatever someone would call that shanty place. As she began to pick her feet up, and leave the creek bed, the sound of another screen door slamming shut resonated through the thicket of trees. She paused in her footsteps and listened to the sounds that followed. The creek walls on either side of Emery blocked out her ability to see them, but their voices still carried. If she were to guess, she'd take a gander that one was male, and the other female. A cat's meow sounded within earshot and Emery found herself procrastinating the trip home. The crickets before went still, alongside the rhythm of chirping frogs. The entire forest drew silent.

She moved forward, approaching the muddy walls and peered over the edge. From there, she spotted the voices, but hadn't anticipated a third party who just quietly moved passed the pair.

"Are we safe here?" The tall male inquired to the woman now approaching his side.

Emery narrowed her eyes when she recognized him from high school, the same one who drove the red Jaguar and who almost ran her off the road. The pair was staring ahead which Emery followed with her eyes, settling on another boy with shaggy brown hair and no clothing. His feet were bare as he stood before them.

"What's the G stand for?" Jaguar asked nonchalantly.

"Go suck an egg." The naked teen replied, seeming out of breath.

"Are we safe right here?" Jaguar said to the woman next to him.

"It's fine," said the woman, clutching Jaguar's arm tightly as she stared ahead. "Just watch."

With furrowed brows, Emery tossed a look back and forth at the separated trio, while the naked teen spat in his hands and rubbed the palms together before running his fingers through his messy brown hair.

"Fuck," Jaguar said with a snap of his fingers.

"What?" The woman replied with perplexity, shooting Jaguar a look.

"I forgot my frisbee." He grinned.

Emery's eyes bounced back to the bare footed boy who had rose a middle finger and a wry smile just before a grotesque popping sound emitted from within him.

He lurched forward with an uncomfortable groan, landing onto his hands and knees as his fingers dug into the earth. A rippling coursed from his shoulders down to his spine while the sound of twisting and breaking bones ensued. Emery's stomach flip flopped while she squeezed a hand over her mouth. She couldn't tear her eyes away. The boy fell onto his side, convulsing under some unforeseen agony while his expression twisted until Emery was sure he should be screaming. As if answering her thoughts, a splintering roar sprang from his mouth, resonating across the small back yard and seeping into the grove that surrounded them. It rose the hair on the back of Emery's neck as she watched.

She was stunned as she observed him writhing in pain. What the actual fuck was going on? From what she could tell, he was suffering through some sort of seizure and in debilitating pain, and they were just watching? Were they going to help him at all? She began frantically pawing her pockets for her cell phone.

As she looked for her cellular device, Emery's thoughts wandered back to the night the Penrose girl was slaughtered. Would this be another event she'd run from? Another horrific scene she would flee while an innocent human was maimed and disfigured?

A gurgling moan pulled Emery away from her futile search and she now watched in horror as the boy began to shed his skin.

He reached up towards his face and dug his nails into the flesh, ripping it away like slop. He then moved for his middle section, clawing and shredding his skin from his body. Emery gagged. She turned away and heaved, spilling the contents of her stomach. When she rose again, the majority of the boy was gone, and within his small remnants, stood a large black animal; a wolf. Surrounding him, were his steaming entrails and shreds of flesh that was once appeared to encase the animal.

Emery scrambled back and slipped into the brook behind her. A splash was made as she spilled into the cold creek water. A shock went threw her from the sudden cold and she gasped aloud. When Emery glanced up quickly to eye where she had just stood, the wolf was at the edge, staring down at her. Like a ghost, she hadn't heard him trot through the crunchy fall leaves and now he was suddenly gazing down at her. Fear kicked her heart into sixth gear as a scream bubbled in her chest, clawing it's way up her throat. She did take heed the quickly approaching footfalls of Jaguar and the other woman. The wolf glanced back towards them and darted away, fleeing from Emery and the other witnesses.

She pushed her heels and hands through the slippery creek bed until she was on the other side, just as the pair reached the edge of the elevated creek wall.

"Who the hell is that?" The woman asked with furrowed brows as she stared down at Emery among the mud and muck.

"Fuck," Jaguar expressed disdainly. He appeared just as shocked and awed as Emery, but with a little, _a lot_, less fear than she exhibited. Was he anticipating that teen to turn into a wolf? Was that expected around here? A norm?

Oh God, Emery thought as she remembered his frisbee comment from before.

"What did you see?" Jaguar asked quickly and with enough force to startle Emery, already at a hysterical rate and climbing. Her eyes bounced between Jaguar and the woman.

"I-," Emery began with a trembling voice. Her mouth hung open, trying to form the words, to assure them she hadn't seen a thing, even though she saw a _thing_ come straight out of a teen, she'd seen the _whole thing_ even though she wished she hadn't seen the thing. "I- I didn't-...," Emery stammered.

"No," the woman sighed with palpable frustration. "She saw the whole thing, Roman."

Roman, Emery quickly pinned, glanced towards her with the same frustration. "Well, now what? What do we do with her?"

"Grab her."


	5. Chapter 5

The sun had taken it's leave, abandoning the clear night sky to the moon's bidding. It was a round and fat and brimming with luminous shine. The light from it's glow caught the wisps of Emery's heavy pants as they expelled quickly from her lips. They dissipated just as fast as they were birthed while Emery burst from the treeline. Onto her property, Emery marched towards the porch with heavy footfalls, exhausted and still flooded with adrenaline. She wasn't a runner, had never been, but sometimes Riley would give her no other option than to try her legs at dead sprints, so she had some practice.

"Fuck," Emery huffed breathlessly eyeing the dark trailer. She'd completely forgotten about Riley. She was far too concerned with removing herself from the current position inside the creek bed. The second that woman had ordered Roman to grab her, Emery clambered her way out of the trench and high-tailed it faster than she had ever fled. Somewhere along the way, she outran Roman. Despite his long legs and wide gait, she managed to escape into the grove and make it back home without interference. Whatever waited her inside was nothing compared to the gruesome horrors she encountered within a week apart.

First the mutilation at Kilderry, now this?

_Jesus Christ…_ she thought to herself crossing into the back yard.

"What the fuck is going on in this town," she muttered aloud as she faltered near the bottom steps of her porch. Emery glanced up towards the door and sighed heavily. What could Riley be up to?

"Please," she whispered into the darkness, hoping whatever divine being who could hear her would throw her a damn bone, for once at least. With each mounting steps, she found her heart begin it's routine climb. Having already crept up into the cavity of her throat, she was sure any sudden and hysterical event that transpired thereafter would expel her heart right out and onto the floor. As she mustered the courage to open the door, Emery noticed the longer she waited out in the darkness, the more the chills along her neck and shoulders intensified, as if out in the impenetrable darkness something waited and watched.

Something wasn't right, she thought as she slowly turned towards the black wall of trees behind her.

She couldn't see it, but she could hear it.

A low rumbling, deep and guttural, resonating out from the grove, out from the darkness, and across her back lawn. A growl.

Something was staring at her and it wasn't happy.

* * *

><p>Roman was lying on that couch when the screen door yanked opened wide. The sun's ray penetrated the shadows of the trailer just in time before Peter's frame blocked it's path. He was naked, like Roman last remembered, and appeared disheveled and hungover. With evident stiffness, Peter ambled up the steps and entered quietly, allowing the door to slam shut behind him. Lynda, his tender and amorous mother, halted her current bustle and watched him eye Roman warily. Peter then glanced to and fro between Lynda and Roman, reading the palpable tension like a billboard along the highway.<p>

"What happened?" he asked, shuffling towards the armchair where a quilt awaited him. He knew already. Knew before the opening line that something had gone awry during his change.

Roman glanced at Lynda hoping she'd be the one to deliver the news, thankfully she did.

"We've got a problem." Lynda began from the kitchen counter that overlooked the small living room.

_Shit, yeah we do,_ Roman thought as he watched Peter reach the chair.

Peter plopped down and extended his legs straight out. He groaned while rubbing his temples. "What," he grumbled as he drew the quilt over his groin with a free hand.

It was Roman's turn to deliver. "We weren't the only people who saw you change."

Peter stopped his circles and eyed Roman carefully. "What do you mean?"

Lynda responded, "A girl was hiding in the creek," she stated, "Wandered onto our property last night, I don't know what she was doing here, but she watched the entire thing."

"Shit," Peter hissed. "_What the fuck_ guys?" He glared at his mom and Roman.

"She's the girl that goes to our school, the one I saw walking to Kilderry." Roman interjected before Lynda could respond. "I tried chasing her down, Peter." He pursed his lips and pawed around for his cigarettes, probably crushed during his sleep. "Fucker was fast."

With a sigh, Peter muttered, "Well aside from _that _shit storm, it's not the girl."

Roman sat up from his slouch and listened. "How do you know?"

"A vargulf," he licked his lips. "A wolf will only attack if it's hungry or provoked, a normal one that is."

"English, dammit." Roman spat.

"It's a wolf that's gone insane, doesn't eat what it kills." Peter finally concluded. "It was out there, I felt it." No piss scent, no gender. It just smelled _angry._

"How do you know _she's_ not the vargulf?" Roman pressed.

Peter glanced at him casually. "Did she change when you chased after her?"

"No." He blurted.

"Well then, there you go."


	6. Chapter 6

Emery was strung out across her bed, appearing dead or heavily sedated when a pounding sound came from the front door. She sat up right, immediately disoriented and confused as hell. Again, the beating ensued from the front door, someone was knocking. Bringing the heel of her hands into her eyes, she rubbed away the sleep and tried to understand why the sun was so high and why things didn't feel right?

_BOOM BOOM BOOM!_

"Christ," her voice croaked with the scratches of sleep. Emery stood wearing a large tshirt that surpassed her knees and a mismatching pair of socks. She clambered out of her bed and hurried to the door, slipping as she threw it open and peered down the short hall.

_BOOM BOOM BOOM_!

The knocking seemed perpetual now and where the hell was Riley? she thought. Emery's half asleep shuffling brought her to the door. Though she was disheveled with a mess of bed hair, she still answered the door. She yanked the innermost door open with enough force to pull it from it's hinges. The sun shined into her eyes, harshening her already premeditated glare.

"Hello," a sheriff stood on the other side with a tight smile. "My names Sheriff Sworn. Is your uhhh..," something behind Emery caught his eye and out of reflex, she glanced over her shoulder. Strung along the couch, topless with a skimpy thong lied Riley. An empty bottle of something laid on it's side, abandoned just beneath Riley's dangling hand. "...Parents home?"

Emery sidestepped and pulled the door closer to her shoulder so the sheriff couldn't stare. "I'm the one you want to talk to." She replied, still squinting, still glaring, and still tired.

"Outstanding," Sheriff Sworn, a round man with a tight waist line, produced a memo pad from his trousers pocket and a pen which he clicked ready. "May I get your name?"

"Emery Cole," she responded, watching him work the ballpoint pen against the paper.

"And your address?"

She gave him the address and he gave her a pointed stare before asking her for her age.

When she replied Sheriff Sworn lifted his gaze with a disapproving brow. "Aren't you supposed to be at school, Miss Cole?"

He was right, but he also wasn't her father. "I overslept." she explained casually.

"I don't see that as an excuse to miss school, ma'am." Sheriff Scorn chided.

Emery pulled her head in to give the microwave clock a glance. 8 a.m. She wasn't too terribly late.

"Get dressed," she heard him say. "I'll take you to school."

* * *

><p>Though she tried to reason with him, claiming she could get to school just fine on her own, Scorn wasn't taking the bait. Begrudgingly, she showered and got dressed in under ten.<p>

On the way to school, Emery learned Sheriff Scorn had two daughters, twins, that also attended Hemlock High. They were younger than her, she believed, possibly freshman if she heard him correctly.

"They're a handful," he joked, more to himself than anything. Emery replied with silence, pulling her backpack closer into her lap towards her chest, and continued to stare out of the window.

When the patrol car came to a stop, she flung the door and climbed out as fast as she could. It'd take only a glance to see her crawling from a sheriff's vehicle and after yesterdays ordeal, who knew what they could derive seeing the town's sheriff dropping her off? She slammed the door just as the sheriff opened his mouth to speak and hurriedly crossed under the awning and disappeared into school's corridors.

* * *

><p>It was a break between first and second period, the transitioning time and plenty of students still lingered the halls. Emery adjusted her backpack to her left shoulder and casually ambled towards her second class. As she rounded the corner she paused. Ahead of her was a stagnant cluster of students. All shoulder to shoulder. Half of them were looking down at a figure seated against the wall. The remaining were cackling and exchanged crude remarks on behalf of the student they stood before. As Emery neared, she tried looking above their shoulders to see. No avail. She hunkered low, and peered between the student's legs, and finally got a better view. When she spotted Shelley, seated and curled into a tight ball, Emery quickly began elbowing her way towards the center where she sat.<p>

"Shelley!" Emery called, lowering into a squat. She reached forward and pulled her bandaged hands she used as a shield from the oncoming hurls of insults. "Come on, Shelley. Let's go. Get up!" Emery noted the tear stained cheeks and her flustered face as she obliged, rising to her seven foot stature. Holding her tenderly by the hand, Emery led Shelley away from the clamoring and clucking congestion by shoving the students aside.

"Dyke," a boy sneered obnoxiously.

"Fucking trailer trash," another student giggled with pink and black braces.

Emery ignored them as she steered Shelley away until one little voice rang out.

"Punching bag!"

Emery heard a ringing sound, like a gunshot went off near her ears. Or the time, Riley smack her against the head so hard, she couldn't hear from her right ear for a week. Whatever it was, her body was responding to it like it did when Riley was waiting for her to walk through the front door.

_Punching bag…, punching bag…, punching bag. _His jeering voice was ricocheting around like a pinball, hitting every nerve Emery had kept at bay.

Before Emery's thoughts could catch up to her actions, her fist was clenched tight and reeling _back_ from an already executed blow. It happened faster than even her eyes could register as she clocked the kid square in the nose. His head bucked back and cracked along the lockers that lined the walls of the hallway. Blood sprang forth and he gripped around the source as he cried out. Emery watched him slide to the floor. A breadth of space surrounded her as the witnessing students all took a step back, away from Emery. Her heart was pounding as the adrenaline kicked into gear. Taking a weary step back, Emery found Shelly and grabbed her by the hand a second time. Together, they hurried down the hall, towards the gymnasium

* * *

><p>[AN]: Special thanks to Luna888, NOTagentsofnothing420, and the kind guest. I appreciate the encouraging reviews and also thanks for reading!


	7. Chapter 7

"This is a strange town," he told his mother just before he left for school. "You can feel it in your balls."

She didn't reply, only offered a simpering smile as he headed out the door.

When Peter traversed the crowded halls for second period, he saw the most peculiar sight; the last bit of two boys kissing. He stopped short, contemplating whether he should continue watching or head for class. It was quick but reluctant, marring the boy's face with shame and humility upon contact. Roman was next to the pair, fuming with an intensive anger. At his sides, his hands were balled into white-knuckled fist, watching as one boy forced his mouth upon the other.

_Ahhhh,_ he realized, _Upir doing what he does best._

Peter paused at the entrance and sighed uninterested.

The kissee finally snapped out of his shocked stupor and shoved the kisser back indignantly just as Roman snarled something, prompting the pair and bystanders to scurry away quickly

Peter waited until the hallway emptied out before approaching Roman. As Peter neared, Roman retrieved a handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed the blood now dripping from his nostril.

"What happened?" Peter asked, looking towards the retreating group of miscreants.

"Shelly," Roman sniffed, still cleaning himself up. "She was just here but I don't know where she went off to. Those fucking punks were blaming her for the killing last night."

Roman, balling the bloodied cloth up, returned the blotted cloth into his blazer. Peter withdrew a joint from his pocket and handed it over. "Smoke this." he told him and began walking.

Together they meandered towards an exit as Peter fumbled for a light.

"Everyone's scared shitless." Roman muttered as they pushed open the doors that led them outside. "It was another Penrose native. I thought Brooke's case rattled everyone, but it seems this one's really getting to people."

Peter didn't need to ask what Roman was referring to. He knew already, felt it this morning right at the base of his ball sack. Another body was found, a girl and like her predecessor, she was disemboweled and abandoned half-eaten. The artistic signature of their infamous _vargulf_ just getting started.

"Are you sure it wasn't you?" Roman carefully added near the end. They were outside now.

Peter kept walking, lowering his voice and making sure no one was within earshot. "I never go out on an empty stomach," he hissed under his breath. "And also, fuck you."

"Maybe you don't remember doing it." Roman continued as they quickly took the steps down. He watched Peter's undeterred expression. "Maybe you blacked out? I mean why _else_ would you show me your transformation? Maybe you _want_ to be caught."

"Jesus," sighed Peter, looking across the street as an elderly woman steered her dog into a bookstore. He turned right and proceeded down the sidewalk. His fingers finally finding the plastic form of a lighter lodged deep in his front pocket. Roman drew silent, matching Peter's disposition. They walked in stride, but Peter, somewhat, leading the way. They pushed passed the treeline and found a trunk obscured from campus view. Peter sat first, holding out the lighter for Roman as he seated next to him.

Roman struck the ignitor and cupped a hand around the flame. The joint smoldered then began to burn. A deep inhale, and slow release. "Wasn't me." Roman mumbled through holding his breath then handing the joint over. He released, expelling his lungs slowly.

"I know," Peter replied, taking the joint.

Roman tried not to exude the dejection he felt for not falling under suspicion. Peter took a puff.

"So you still think it's the vargulf?" asked Roman.

"I know it is." Peter replied, exhaling the smoke. "I smelled it at Kilderry park. You can tell it's whole life by it's scent. Sex, health, it's fucking needs. Wasn't like anything. Just anger."

Roman watched as Peter passed the joint over.

"What about the girl?" Roman inquired. "The one who saw you change?"

"What about her?" Peter retorted, prompting Roman to shrug.

"I just figured we should probably find her, ask her some questions." Roman suggested.

"Ask her questions?" scoffed Peter, "Like what? _You might have seen me brutally shift into a wolf the other day, but don't worry it's all in your head_, something like that? Are you fucking kidding me?"

Roman's eyes shadowed incredulously, "What else are we to do? She's going to tell someone eventually! You said so yourself I'm the only one who knows besides Lynda. That's not a secret you can keep!"

Peter's leg began to bounce. "Look at it this way," he began solemnly, "If she did happen to tell someone about what she saw, you think Shelley would have been the brunt of last nights event?" He paused there, allowing Roman to consider his words. "People would be lining the streets with fucking pitch forks and torches." He took a deep pull from the joint and held it. "She hasn't told anyone."

"At least, not yet."

* * *

><p><strong>Short, yes, I know, but I didn't want to make the chapter too long. The following it already written up, but I didn't want to bombard you all with three thousand word chapter. That's grueling! RR!<strong>

**Special thanks to wab-sabi1090 and their wonderful reviews. Things will look up soon for our girl Emery...hopefully.**


	8. Chapter 8

"Shelly," Emery suddenly said. She twisted around to look up at the girl. "Want to get out of here?"

The two girls were perched along the bleachers, neither intending to step foot out into the hallway after what they both had experienced. Emery had to go back and grab her backpack, having slung it off when she saw Shelley being ridiculed. When she did, she noticed her phone was ringing incessantly. She checked the caller but it was only Riley. She also had several text messages asking that she come back home, but Emery decided to ignore those as well. Just thinking about what Riley could possible want made her stomach twist with nerves.

"Where would we go?" Shelley inquired, sitting next to Emery with her phone and stylus ready.

Emery place her cell phone on vibrate and tossed it back into her book bag. "I don't know." she murmured, "Just somewhere else. Can we just go to your place?"

Shelley considered this for a moment. The point of the stylus hovering over the face of her cell. Emery watched as Shelley struggled to decide on whether to skip school or just remain there until the final bell. Emery guessed Shelley probably hasn't done a single thing in this life to frown upon. She appeared to be a good girl, quiet and obeying, but also something else, something Emery couldn't put a name to. Emery stared at the colossal girl seated next to her for the first time. She saw the slight scarring, the patches of flesh where hair should be, and a subtle distortion along her face. Emery knew she was freakishly tall, but what was beneath her curtain of hair she used to veil her face?

Emery suddenly lost interest in further investigating. It didn't matter. None of it mattered. What mattered was getting out of school before things went from bad to worse. She was sure the boy ran to the principles and told them what she did to him, showed them even which is more than likely the reason Riley was blowing up her cell. She needed to get out of here.

"Yes," Shelley finally answered, "We can walk. It's not too terribly far."

Emery sighed with relief, "Awesome. Let's go."

* * *

><p>Nearly an hour later, Shelley and Emery arrived. It began to rain midway prompting Emery to remove her jacket and drape it over Shelley's head. She happily received the offer while Emery continued to walk under the deluge of rain. Once they reached Shelley's property, Emery was already drenched and frozen to the bone. Her shoulders began to tremble and ache while her bottom jaw bounced against her teeth as the impressive house came into view.<p>

"Wow," Emery shivered. It was all she could manage as she stared at the ostentatious structure, even calling the massive castle a mansion seemed underestimating it's girth. Shelley smiled beneath the shadows of Emery's jacket before ushering her inside.

The foyer had a winding staircase on the left. A room directly left and one directly right, both adorned antique furnishing and unparalleled decorations. A massive grandfather clock was straight ahead, ticking it's endless lullaby. Shelley brought the jacket down and shook off the rain. She draped it on a coat rack and pulled her phone and stylus out. She pecked at the screen quickly.

"Mother is away, running errands, I presume." the voice said, "I'll draw you a bath and bring you some dry clothes." Emery was then led up to an elevator. Shelley shuffled in beside her, hit a switch, and they began their ascent.

After Emery bathed and dressed in a massive sweater, Shelley went down to grab some food for Emery and herself. Once the elevator door shut, Emery dug her phone out and read the text messages, all thirteen of them.

_Come home_, one read.

_Answer your fucking phone!_ said another.

_Emery, please. The police are here._

Emery quickly scanned through the remaining text messages, all relaying the same pleading request to return to her home. There's no way Emery would come home. She'd dealt with enough for today and it was only 10 a.m. What else would be in store for her if she were to adhere to Riley? Emery scrolled up to the last message, seeking the answer, and stopped short.

_Emery, they found a dead girl behind our house. I need you, I can't deal with all these people. Come home please._

A girl was found dead? Emery sat there motionless, staring passed her cellphone, in a trance. Would it be on the news by now? How many people already knew about it? Who was she? Was it someone Emery knew?

The sheriff! Emery realized.

She'd forgotten entirely about the sheriff, not once questioning why he was knocking at her door. Even after he took her to school this morning he never indulged Emery on his reasons for being at her door and she certainly didn't think to ask. Wouldn't that make her a suspect? Were they looking for her? So many questions! She began to panic.

Emery glanced back down to her phone and read the message over again. She thought about the previous night and suddenly her blood ran cold.

She remembered now the sound that seeped out of the shadowed grove. The way it's gaze pierced her back like pinpricks and rose the hair on ends. She could hear it now, as if she were still frozen on the bottom steps of her porch, staring into the night. _It_ was behind her house, obscured by the thick trees and darkness, watching her.

_It_ had left her a gift.

Emery's phone started vibrating.

She blinked, snapping out of her trance, and punched the green button.

Raising a shaking hand, she pressed the device to her ear and said, "Hello?"

"Miss Emery Cole?" a man's voice responded.

"Yes?"

"This is Sheriff Sworn. We met this morning," he said. Then he sighed heavily and continued, " I need you to come down to the station."


	9. Chapter 9

"It's just part of protocol," the Deputy said, "We'll make it quick as possible, okay?"

Emery could only nod. She was at the department, surrounded by Penrose mourners who believed they had an insight on what happened the night before. But, in all reality, Emery got the feeling they just wanted to appear important and, perhaps, steal a second or two in front of a news camera. The way they applied chapstick, or, in some cases, lip gloss in between sessions with officials around them. All the while, Emery couldn't sit still if her life depended on it. Her leg bounced incessantly as if any moment she'd lose composure and storm out of the building. Emery could never trust a uniform, not matter the shade, pattern, or insignia. She'd learned to feel this way for personal reasons.

As she waited and listened, her mind began to wander back to the creek bed. How she hadn't slipped up and told someone was beyond her. Maybe she'd fabricated the entire thing. Maybe there wasn't a werewolf lurking the shadows of Hemlock Grove. Maybe, like her sister, her mind was deteriorating and in it's corrupted wake it brought images so vile and so morbid. She prayed that was the case. _Oh God, please be the case._

If it wasn't a fantasy, and she was awake in a living nightmare where flesh turned to fur and molars peaked into canines, where students are disemboweled and strewn across state parks, or left abandoned and half devoured behind shanty mobile homes, if all this were true; Emery would evidently go insane. Should she tell someone? If so, who? Shelley? Would Shelley understand? Would the police? Should she tell the police?

_Fuck no_, Emery suddenly chided. _There's no way._

Half the town already knew her sister had PTSD, now the younger one was claiming to see a boy turn into a wolf?

Emery laughed aloud at the notion as she stared at her fidgeting hands. People would think she was fucking crazy. Maybe, she was. Hopefully, she was.

If not, it had to be him. She knew it for certain. Whoever _he_ was was the culprit to the murders of both Penrose girls. Had Emery been more in tuned with the student body she would have caught the whiffs of rumors, but alas, she was not. Still an outcast, still just a punching bag that came to school so everyone got a good look at her cuts and bruises, at the good work of Riley Cole. And since Shelley wasn't much of a talker, and as far as social standings, paralleled with Emery on the popular scale, or lack thereof, it wasn't as if she had heard anything as well. Hell, they were blaming her for the mutilations. Shelley didn't know, not anymore than Emery.

Around her the volume of voices fluctuated. The most she gathered by the hum of chatter was the victim happened to be another student from Penrose. Who? she couldn't quite catch the name.

Suddenly, a figure was standing to Emery's right. She tried not to jump when she glanced up to meet the inviting pale green eyes of a female in slacks and a khaki blazer but failed. Sheriff Sworn was right behind her.

"Miss Cole," Sworn began, "This is Dr. Chasseur. She's here to ask you a few questions."

"Hello," Chasseur chirped with an extended hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

Emery stood and carefully returned the handshake. "Nice to meet you too." she managed to say around a subtle gulp.

"Do you mind if we take a walk?" With her thumb jutted out, Chasseur gestured towards a window. She offered a smile.

"No, not at all." said Emery.

The doctor led the way until they were outside. She paused at the entrance, allowing Emery to step through the held door and continue onward. Chasseur didn't waste a moment to conduct business. As soon as the door shut, the investigation began.

"I'm sure you are aware of your ties to this mornings murder. Am I right?" Chasseur stated.

"Yeah, I guess." Emery uttered. "You found a dead girl behind my house, I get it. What about Riley? Did she go through this same 'protocol'?" She made quotation marks with her fingers.

Chasseur shook her head. "Your sister showed no signs of evading the police." She paused, allowing Emery to absorb her words, then she asked, "Why weren't you at school this morning? Sheriff Sworn stated you missed first period. He had to take you himself. When officials arrive, they said you hadn't made it to class yet."

"I overslept," she responded with steady eyes. "I've been sleeping like shit for days now."

Chasseur considered this, "So why weren't you still at school after Sworn dropped you off?"

Emery stuffed her hands into her pockets and shrugged. "Somethings came up. My friend was having some trouble. I came in to help and ended up making it into an even bigger mess. So we left."

"Who is your friend?"

"Why does that matter? Isn't this about the murder behind my house? She hasn't nothing to do with it."

"Is it Shelley Godfrey?"

"I don't know her last name. Perhaps?" Emery shrugged again.

With terse lips and a curt nod, Chasseur inquired some more. "Mind telling me why your tracks were spotted leading up to the crime scene and thereafter?"

The statement hit Emery blindsided, but then again, if what Chasseur claimed were true, it did appear as though Emery was dodging the police. She hadn't known this at the time, wasn't even aware of the carcass behind her house until her sister revealed the information. Everything was looking bad suddenly.

"The night before I took a walk through the woods." said Emery.

"Just a walk? Nothing else?" Chasseur watched with keen, emerald eyes.

"No," Emery snapped. "Nothing else. I walk to school. My sister's truck isn't reliable so I've managed to hoof it most of the time. I took a wrong turn-"

"The woods are pretty tricky, especially at night." Chasseur interjected.

"Yes," Emery said, "They are."

"Emery," Chasseur paused, "Is that alright if I call you Emery?"

She shrugged.

"Emery, is it true your sister suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?"

Emery lifted her guard. "What does that have anything to do with? You think she might have done something?"

"Not at all," replied Chasseur. "The markings on the body suggest an animal attacked Lisa Willoughby. You wouldn't happen to have a dog would you?"

"No," Emery bit back. "No dogs."

The first and last dog Emery tried taking care of ended up dying in her arms, his throat slit and jagged, spilling blood into his fur, courteous of Riley. Should she mention to Dr. Chasseur that her sister had killed their only family pet? That it's barking, perpetual and resonating, caused her sister to snap and grab the closest Ka-Bar? Just thinking about it brought back images of Emery sobbing on the slick kitchen floor, holding the mutt until he stopped quivering in her gentle embrace. She had to bury him herself and clean up the pool of blood on the tiled floor. No, she couldn't tell Chasseur that. They'd take Riley away and send Emery to a boarding school, or some orphanage. That and the thing with the boy. What would you call that? Morphing? Going from human to animal wasn't something she'd consider a thing. But it was a thing. It _is_ a thing and that _thing _was still out there killing people. Emery shuddered. She needed to keep her responses short and to the point and then hurry home.

"Emery?" Chasseur's voice entered her head.

"Yes, sorry." Emery cleared her throat. "No dog. If this is an animal attack, why am I being questioned?"

Chasseur smiled, and asked, "Did you know Lisa Willoughby?"

"No, I did not." Emery retorted with steady eyes.

"It's part of protocol, Emery." Chasseur began. "Just making sure loose ends are tied. If there's something out there, I intend to find it."

* * *

><p>Despite Peter's reluctance, he now stood on the doorstep of Castle Godfrey. He had just finished wrapping his knuckles against the hardwood and now waited to be received.<p>

A few moments later, the door's latch clicked, and was drawn inward, revealing long black hair and a painfully beautiful face, dressed in a silken white gown.

"Yes?" Olivia Godfrey answered with palpable confusion. Her furrowed brow remarkably evident. What could a gypsy possible be doing at her doorstep? she probably thought.

"Is Roman here?" Peter as he slipped his hands into his jacket.

"May I ask who's calling?" asked Olivia.

"It's Peter." He practically mumbled.

Olivia didn't seem to understand who that was and why they were associating with her son. She told him Roman never mentioned a Peter at all. He claimed they had English together, and were working on an essay, a study group of the sort.

"Ahhh," Olivia mockingly realized. "Wuthering Heights, is it?"

Peter manage a nod, hands still shoved into the depths of his pockets.

"So, tell me: gypsy orphaned Healthcliff: Byronic hero or proto-marxist class warrior?"

_The fuck,_ Peter thought, _is she referring to?_

Not that Peter didn't like the occasional game, he did, it just seemed at the time there were more pressing matters. Peter replied, "I'm still on chapter one."

"Yes," Olivia muttered, giving him a once over. "I suppose you are." With long, delicate fingers she reached back and took hold of the door. "Well, Roman isn't home at the moment, but I will tell him you stopped by." She pondered a moment, "Uhh, Paul, was it?"

_Shit_, Peter grumbled, taking a glance back at the parked red Jaguar in the driveway. Last run in he had with Roman didn't end on the best note, but when things turned from bad to worse, for a gypsy at least, then it was time to pack up and move along. With the death of Lisa Willoughby and the rumor still claiming he's a werewolf, it'd be far too suspicious to just disappear, despite how badly he wanted to. He had to wait it out. Besides, maybe Roman was right. Maybe they needed to stop the _vargulf _together_._ For fuck's sake, they shared the same dreams. How fucking weird is that?

"It's Peter," he tried not to snap as he looked back to Olivia and her priggish smile.

"Well, nice to meet you, _Peter_." She turned to shut the door, but paused when something seized her attentions then she gave Peter one more fleeting glance of disgust before throwing the door wider, allowing Peter to see Roman just beyond the foyer. His arms were crossed about his chest and he was leaning against the frame of the entrance.

* * *

><p>"Yeah? Well maybe that's something you should be discussing with your <em>guidance counselor.<em>" Roman sneered as he turned and spun a pool ball around on it's orbit. Olivia had finally allowed Peter entrance into Castle Godfrey where Roman awaited him. Not uttering a word until they were far from earshot, the two teenagers meandered into a parlor to where they now discussed the most recent of events.

"Maybe I will." Peter retorted. First Olivia, now Roman. _Jesus Christ, these games!_

"What's the big deal?" Roman suddenly said just as Peter stood from the window sill. "That Wendell girl totally freaked out. They're not going to take her seriously."

"It's not just that," Peter replied. "It's the _other _girl."

"What other girl?" Roman looked confused.

"The one who, you know, the other girl." Peter didn't want to say it out loud.

Roman was drawing blank.

Peter stepped forward and lowered his voice to an impatient whisper, "The one who saw me change under the moon."

"Oh shit," Roman realized. "_That _girl. Fuck, I totally forgot about her."

"Yeah," Peter chided. "That girl."

"Well, what about her?"

"This...," Peter struggled to find the profession that Dr. Chasseur shared with him the moment they met. "This _special agent_, I think, of US Fish and Wildlife came to my home, said she was investigating the murder of Lisa Willoughby."

"And?" Roman responded.

"And she asked me if I was a werewolf…," Peter sighed. He threw his hands up with a defeated flop. "So there's that."

"So? What did you tell her?"

Peter cringed, "What the fuck do you think I told her? I said no!"

"Alright then. There you go. Problem solved." Roman replied as he tossed the pool ball between palms.

"No," Peter snapped. "Problem _not_ solved. All she needs is a scent. My people have been put away for many years for a lot less, Roman."

"What do you mean?"

"Nicolai." Peter murmured, sitting back on the edge of the window. "If she digs, she'll find out."

"Find out what?" Roman asked impatiently.

"Nicolai was a killer. He killed one of his own. This?" He gestured towards the spot just along the left side of his rib cage. "This means _garjo, "outsider"_. Nicolai stood outside all worlds and I stand next to Nicolai."

Roman shrugged.

"It's in my blood." Peter adjusted his shirt. "Blood stains."

"Who do you think this Chasseur really is?" Roman threw out.

"Doesn't matter!" Peter nearly yelled, "All that matters is not putting me in a cage. We need to find that girl, Roman. We need to find her and make sure she doesn't, or _hasn't_, told anyone what she saw that night."


	10. Chapter 10

When Emery made it home the place was still crawling with officials. Most congregated towards the back portion of the property, but that was given. She hurried across the lawn and lunged over the trio of steps. When she came through the front door, Riley was found seated along the couch, crying. Emery stilled at the entrance, eyeing the balls of tissue around her eldest sister. Apprehension, if anything, kept her from coming too close to Riley. Even though the itch to comfort Riley still beckoned like a moth to flame.

"Riley?" Emery cautiously conciliated. "Are you okay?"

The dish-water blonde carved in tattoos that concealed scars more than anything, glanced up. Her face, still youthful and pretty to the eyes, was blotchy and flushed. Around her nose was red from irritation. Her green eyes were swollen.

"Hey," Riley's voice croaked. "You're home."

Though Emery knew she meant well, for now, calling this shanty establishment a _home_ made her stomach churn. This was no home. Not for Emery, at least.

"I am," Emery placated. "Mind if I sit?" She eyed the spot to Riley's left. Her sister nodded as she sniffed and dabbed her nose. Carefully Emery steered herself across the small living room and plopped down next to Riley. She wasn't sure if she should drape an arm or offer a reassuring pat. Instead, she kept her hands to herself.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Emery asked gently.

Riley's lips disappeared into her mouth and her brow began to knit. Several tears escaped as she nodded.

After she sniffed, she replied. "I woke up this morning to a girl screaming." The tears began to fall liberally. "It startled me at first and then I got fucking pissed. I mean, my god, it's nine in the fucking morning. Why would anyone need to be screaming?" Emery took a moment to kneel down and pluck a fresh tissue from a box she spotted on the floor. She sat up and handed it to her sister.

"I put some clothes on and went outside." Riley blew her nose with the provided fresh tissue and continued. "I found this fucking _child_ out behind our house. She was on the ground, scrambling away from something and still fucking screaming. So I marched over there, thinking I was going to have to call someone's parents and then I saw the _other _girl." Riley's shoulders shook with a silent cry. "Half of her was gone," she breathlessly wailed.

Emery's brow had furrowed as she listened. "What do you mean half of her was gone?"

Riley waved a hand over her body. "It was all gone; missing. Like someone pulled her in half and left her there."

Emery grimaced and swallowed bitterly. "Did you call the police?"

Riley nodded. "I picked the girl up and brought her inside then called 911."

Emery sat back with a sigh. Well that was that. Half a girl was found behind her house and just a week ago she witnessed one being mauled first hand. Not to mention _him._ She felt the chills bristle along her shoulders and down her arms. A sickening dread began to sink into her stomach as she sat next to her distraught sibling. Could she tell Riley? Albeit, she didn't feel the urge to surrender the information. She hadn't for sometime, which was odd, she guessed. Were something to happen to her, she'd at least hoped someone shared her secret or had the barest clue to her disappearance, or God forbid, her murder.

Emery was chewing on her lip as Riley continued to sob softly. Finally, she reached up and passed her hand over Riley's back. She palmed it, noted the warmth, and then pressed against it with more resolve. Then she stroked, back and forth. Her movements were mechanical despite their attempt to assuage Riley, but she didn't seem to notice.

"You should get some sleep, Riley." Emery said. She stood then and gazed upon her sister. Riley was a wreck. Emery couldn't remember the last time Riley wasn't sleeping or screaming. Now she was falling to pieces in their living room, but not violent pieces, just a sad, wet, snot dripping mess.

Odd, Emery thought, as she wandered into her bedroom.

* * *

><p>Another night was creeping along and Emery still awake. She lay among her sheets, just staring into the stained ceiling, wondering things. Riley was passed out on the couch, leaving reruns of something obnoxious playing. Emery kept hearing the same closing theme over and over.<p>

Finally she got up and meandered into the living room. Sure enough her sister was stretched across the couch, fast asleep. Emery was reflective as she looked over Riley, she began to realize things were changing, for both of them. Riley hadn't a spell, even despite seeing a carcass just behind the house. Emery figured that was something soldiers were used to, seeing the raw stages of war causalities ; military and civilians alike. But then again, Hemlock Grove believed the killings were animal driven, not man, which Emery would agree. So maybe it was just as disturbing. Whatever it was, it scared off Riley's demons for the moment.

Emery ambled over to the couch, found the remote, and turned the TV off. She tossed it back onto the cushions and returned to her room to get dressed, but not before she retrieved Riley's Ka-bar on the end table.

The night was clear and cold when Emery snuck out of her window. She had pocketed the hunting knife for her trek. She had somewhere to be, where? she didn't exactly know. Her feet led her across the front yard, down the empty road and into town.

Seeing Hemlock Grove at night brought a different feel. It was quiet, less inquisitive, and not nearly as unnerving as when she took the sidewalks home after school. People stared, but she was used to it. Or was she? Most of Emery's batterings had healed, but it seemed when people gazed upon her, they were looking inside at all the scars and lashes she kept beneath her skin. It was more overwhelming than the superficial welts she sported when a stranger looked into her eyes and saw more than she intended. But now, as she walked through the sleeping town, she felt nothing but relief and the cold night's air.

Before she knew it, Emery was standing at the gate of Sacred Heart Cemetery. She was looking for the fresh mound and collection of faux flowers left to endure thunderstorms and frigid winters, but instead, she heard sounds, sounds that were natural to an empty cemetery.

As the lighter shades of shadows took definition, turning into tombstones and simpering angel statues, Emery realized she wasn't alone. What she could wasn't the sway and rustle of leaves, but whispers. She closed in on the soft conversation that seemed to emit from under the ground, a hole, even, and hunkered next to a World War II veteran and his wife's epitaph.

"They let me do it." one voice said. She scanned the darkness, hoping to spot their movements.

There. With her peripherals she caught the upward travel of slung dirt, another followed afterward, but further to the left. Emery twisted around until she peered over the top of the tombstone. She could see the tossed aside flowers and memorabilia that once adorned the fresh grave, now just obstructions to the culprit's current offense.

"Do what?" another responded.

"Cut off his head. Things happen to our kind after we die if you don't cut off the head." the first voice explained.

"So...what kind of things?" the other inquired after a moment of thought.

"Bad things."

Between the pants and small talk was the metal carvings against the dirt. They were digging, Emery realized in horror. They were digging up Lisa Willoughby, or Brooke Bluebell. Maybe even both and just hadn't gotten to her yet.

Emery clamped a cold hand over her mouth. She pressed harder into the cold tombstone large enough to conceal her from view and continued to listen. Where they trying to rob the poor girl? And if so, from what? She already lost her life and bottom half. What could she provide for them now?

"I've only been to two funerals." said one of two. "One was my dad, in '99. It's all pieces. I remember hearing the shot and going downstairs. The way Mom was sitting on the couch, the look on her face like she forgot why she'd walked into the room, you know. He was on the floor. It smelled like her favorite perfumed, he'd soaked himself in it. I remember thinking how much trouble he'd be in for wasting it."

The voice drifted into a whispered until more fragments of the memory returned.

"Who was the other funeral?" the other accomplice asked.

"Shelley's." he said.

If Emery wasn't fixated before, she certainly was now. Shelley who? Shelley Godfrey? Her Shelley?

_No_, Emery thought, _certainly not_. How many Shelleys were in Hemlock Grove ; Not that many. Besides, that would be suggesting these two were locals and not from out of town, Philly maybe. There were probably a lot more Shelleys there. A dull thunk resonated from the hole and across the calm cemetery and both diggers stopped. Emery flinched and hunkered low when she watched a figure stood, nearly emerging from the grave. He was shrouded in dark colored clothes and a beanie clutched his head. He laced his fingers and began pulling his palms above himself. Beneath him, still hidden in the hole, was the sound of groaning wood. It then made a splintering noise and Emery knew the other had opened the casket. The figure then disappeared back down and asked,

"What's your cousin going to do with that?"

In which the other replied, "What she can. No promises."

A headlight swept across Emery's back suddenly and then the sound of tires rolling against gravel reached her ears. She spun around in time to see a patrol car stop and park. The doors swung open. Acting quickly, Emery scrambled up and over the tombstone, revealing herself to the grave diggers but not the police. She flopped onto her back.

"What was that?" she heard them both say as she glanced towards the grave. Two heads popped up and spotted her.

"Someones here! Someones here! Someones here!" One sputtered frantically. They ducked back into the hole while Emery was pinned between two sick bastards and prying cops.

"Fuck," Emery hissed under her breath. If the cops found her and the empty grave, it wouldn't be good. "Fuck!" she whimpered again. She heard the car doors slam shut, but the lights didn't turn off. Alarms were going off in her head and she had to decide fast.

Stay put and try to evade the police, or take off running, which was more than likely what the diggers were about to do.

"That's her!" One hissed as he popped back up to look at her.

"What? Who?" The other replied perplexed.

The cops were closing in, but still enough paces away when she took a fleeting glance.

_Run!_ Her thoughts pleaded, but run where?!

Suddenly, one of the figures clambered out of the hole and crawled to her. A scream was starting to bubble in her throat as they honed it, but she squeeze a hand over her mouth. She stuck her other arm out, attempting to ward them off and soon she recognized the incomer as Roman. He snagged her around the collar by her hoodie and dragged her towards the grave.

"No!" She gasped, clawing at his gloved hands. They were standing now, hurrying away as the second man climbed out of the yawning hole, a satchel tossed over his shoulder. He gripped a shovel which he pushed into Emery's hold. She took it, now suddenly confused. Roman was still trying to get her to run.

The scruffy boy pressed his pointer finger against his lips, telling her to be quiet. He grabbed her shoulder and steered her quickly within stride.

_It's him_, she realized all at once. _The demon dog, the killer._

But before fear could seize her bones and take over, beams of light swept across the graveyard, reminding Emery that a lot more was at stake than just her life. If the cops spotted the three, she would burn with them, no matter what she plead as the truth. She was there at the scene of the crime, even if she had no direct correlation. Guilty by association. That would leave Riley alone to tend with her own demons. Emery would be sent to juvenile detention, or worse, back into foster care where even uglier things transpired, that's to say if she got out on good behavior. Emery recalled one family, a man and wife, who took turns molesting her. Albeit, there was never penile penetration, the wife had jealousy issues, other things were pushed inside of her. She swore secrecy on behalf of Riley, who had just turned seventeen and made it out of foster care and straight into Army boot camp. She made a promise to rescue Emery and take her in as her own.

Emery held onto theses words like they were the one thing that kept her heart beating. Words she chanted in her head, over and over, under all the hate, and tears, and welts provided. Emery was only ten, but she clutched to Riley's promise for what felt like a century.

Now she was running from the cops, chasing killers who disturbed graves and turned into wolves under new moons, but at least she was still alive. She had survived a lot, she realized.

She could survive this.


	11. Chapter 11

One moment Emery was being dragged across the Sacred Heart Cemetery by her elbow and the next she was waking up to her alarm squawking. She sat upright with a gasp, her heart kickstarting into a panicked frenzy. She took a deep breath to placate it's rhythm and placed a trembling hand over her heart. She smelled like dirt and sweat, her hair was tangled and stiff and she was still fully dressed. Clumps of mud littered the surface of her bed; the culprit, her muck covered boots. Even her jacket and Ka-bar remained on her persons. Emery glanced around for anything else offset, but nothing came to her attention. She stood and hurried to get ready for school.

Damp hair, brushed teeth and cleaned clothes, Emery stepped out into the living room and came to a sudden halt. Not only was Riley awake, but two other guest were standing at her side in the kitchen. Dr. Chasseur, who she immediately recognized, and a man Emery had never seen before, but that wasn't saying much. With her backpack dangling from one hand and the other stretched out resting on the door, Emery gave them all an inquisitive look, especially towards the older man who sported a trench coat and briefcase. The way Riley hadn't acknowledged her younger sister struck her as trouble. Emery bit her lip and asked, "Riley, what are these people doing here?"

Chasseur spoke first, "Good morning, Emery. About to head out for school?"

"That I am." Emery replied. "What's going on? Why are you here?"

"Good, that'll give Dr. Godfrey some time alone with Riley." Chasseur gave a slow glance towards her sister. "I found a little time on my hands, decided to help the community out in the meanwhile. I thought about you and what you told me about your sister, came to see Riley myself. I want to help."

"Excuse me, what doctor?" Emery released the door knob. She discarded the rest of Chasseur's message immediately.

"Emery, this is Dr. Norman Godfrey. He's a local psychologist here in Hemlock." Chasseur gestured towards the rugged man who appeared too tired or aloof to be awake at this hour. He offered a smile and bid her a good morning.

"I've heard of him." Emery began, "But we really can't afford a psychiatrist right now, sorry that you came all this way for nothing." She reached for the door again.

"It's on me," Chasseur said, "I've seen many of brethren fall victim to PTSD, and with her association with the Willoughby murder, I want to make sure this kind of _exposure_ doesn't send her back to the streets of a Fallujah."

Emery froze again, hand squeezing the knob to keep her upright. She considered this, rehashing all the nights her sister narrated stories of her tours to the Middle East. The place was hell on Earth. She glanced back towards Riley who still sat motionless at the table, fixated on the smooth surface. A cooling cup of coffee before her. Was this it? Was she finally going to get some help? And why would Chasseur take it upon herself to investigate the Cole's? She didn't owe them anything. Veteran or not, Chasseur was part of Fish and Wildlife, not an advocate for Wound Warriors or the like. Emery felt her eyes narrow at Chasseur, who narrowed a look in return.

"Riley has nothing to do with the murders." Emery deadpanned. "She's never hurt anyone."

_Besides you..._, a tiny voice whispered in her head.

Chasseur tilted her head curiously and a smirk lifted the corners of her mouth. "We'll see, Emery. Have a good day at school."

* * *

><p>Peter had taken the intestinal remains of Lisa Willoughby to his cousin Destiny, but without the upir. After Roman ruffled the blonde that discovered them at the cemetery, Peter thought it best to give the guy some space. Peter didn't know how it worked, or why Roman did was he did, it was just the way upirs did business. As he reflected, Peter decanted a shot of tequila for Destiny while he played the images over in his head. It was always peculiar to watch the upir work his magic, even if he didn't understand it himself. She'd fallen over a tombstone just paces away from Willoughby's fresh grave. A patrol car had arrived across the property. Roman was the first to spot both. It was his cursing breath that caught Peter's attention even though he was midst stuffing entrails into a mason jar. The slick sounds were sickening, but Peter had done much worse in his time, and he was only seventeen. Next thing Peter realized Roman was climbing out of the furrow just as he closed the lid and tossed the shovel up. He stood and watched Roman scamper towards the girl. She warded him off with her hand while the other staved off a scream. Even in the dark Peter could denote her wide pale eyes. The fright she must have felt seeing two students digging up a body and stuffing it into a jar was probably paralyzing. Peter needed something of Lisa's though, especially if they intended to find the vargulf.<p>

Peter didn't feel like he'd seen her before but when he had gazed upon her, it didn't feel like the first time. He paused, now setting the bottle carefully down as Destiny plucked the fat earthworm from it's morbid glutton. He slid the shot glass towards her as she swallowed the worm still writhing as it went down. She quickly chased it with tequila and plopped into her chair just after she licked the pink froth from her fingers. The images of Roman holding the girl by her shoulders as he penetrated into her mind still played. The way her body tensed under his hold. The problem was she wouldn't get in the car. Peter would have been fine in leaving her there for the cops to find but then Roman clarified who she really was. The girl who saw him change. Now he finally had a face to remember. A small tired blonde with light colored eyes and a scar along her lip that he caught sight of in the moonlight.

"Now." Destiny said, snapping Peter out of his reverie. Destiny was fashioning a belt around her waist.

Peter came around and fastened it tightly against her and the back of the chair, securing her against it.

"You wouldn't happen to be ticklish, would you?" Peter joked.

Destiny huffed, "It'll be the last thing you ever do." she muttered.

He came around and pulled up his own chair, turning it to face his cousin. The show was about to begin.

"Okay, whatever you need, ask quick because this goes by fast." she said as she shifted in her seat.

"Okay." Peter nodded. He leaned forward as she rested her arms down along the rests. He gripped her wrists and held tight, bracing.

Suddenly, she took a sharp breath and hunched forward. A quick stab of abdominal pain.

"Are you ready?" Destiny asked between a winced breath.

"Yeah, yes. I'm ready." Peter quickly responded. He held tighter.

Just then she whipped back and then forward again, thrashing against the belt, straining it taut. An arduous grunt seethed passed gritted teeth. Her breathing came out hoarse and panic stricken. Her hair fell forward, concealing her face, and then her back went rigid, slowly arching away from Peter until her chin faced the ceiling and her hair fell away from her shoulders. A choking breath escaped her lips that came out foggy like a winter's mist. She hunched forward again, gasping, and then thrashed side to side, rocking the chair's legs against the wooden floor. Destiny then slumped forward, stilling under Peter's hold, and then stiffening her back again. He caught a glimpse of her eyes as she moved, solid black orbs. She groaned again and suddenly fell slack. Her head dropped and her breathing slowed.

"Can you talk?" he asked into the top of Destiny's head.

"Yes." Her voice said weakly.

"What can you tell me?"

The words came out fast and all at once. "Ihatedbutterscotch. Iwasgoodatshit, likesewing, IwasplanningtogiveScottBufordablowjobforhisbirthdaybutchickened out-,"

"Sorry, what can you tell me about your death?" Peter asked more specifically.

Destiny's shoulders went rigid and did a quick lurch. She took a sharp breath and groaned.

"I came to Hemlock Grove because of the invitation. It was dark, and I didn't see anyone else, but I thought that was part of it. So I parked a little way off and doubled back, like it said. And there he was. I couldn't tell what it was at first, waiting there in the mist,-"

"Wait," Peter quickly interrupted. "What invitation?"

Destiny went mute and her head rolled to the side. "Fun, fun, fun." she said. She suddenly sat upright, meeting Peter with large black eyes. "I parked. I got out but left my keys in. Ding, ding, ding. I thought I was alone, but then he was there. Ding, ding, ding." Destiny started to shake and gasp. She squeezed her eyes shut and began to breath laboriously until finally, she stilled. She opened her eyes and said calmly, "I've always had a way with dogs. I reached out to pet him, and then I saw his eyes, a horrible yellow. Oh God, it was how he looked at me." She began to cry.

"Looked at you how?" Peter asked.

"The helpless way a dog looks at you when it can't tell you want it needs." A moment went by of silence and of Destiny staring through Peter. He thought maybe the spell was over until she was thrown back against the chair and she cried out violently, squeezing onto the armrest and thrashing against the belt still tied at her waist. Her body flexed, stiffened and she grunted until a choking sound began to resonate. She lurched forward and puked into Peter's lap. The worm fell out and flopped onto his jeans.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapters dedicated to wabi-sabi1090**

* * *

><p>"Is there anything else you can tell me?" Dr. Godfrey asked as his patient slumped within their chair. The medications were taking their toll, no longer did she fidget nervously, or avoid prolonged eye contact. He kept the office quiet with the blinds drawn up, filling the room with the soft winter sun.<p>

"Yes," she drolled, dropping her chin down. "My sister."

"What about her?" Norman sat up from his elbows.

"She reminded me of her." Riley reflected. "She was hysterical and so was I when I first saw the body. Still screaming, I took her inside and she began to cry as I was phoning the police." Riley paused, her eyes a steady fix on something unseen by Norman. "Then she said the most peculiar thing to me. Through all the snot and tears and frustration, this little girl, this innocent little person looked at me and said,

"You did this. You and that fucking sister of yours."

* * *

><p>Emery still couldn't remember how she managed to wake up in her bedroom. What she <em>could<em> recall was walking to the cemetery alone. She had her sister's knife and a heavy heart. There was a reason she wanted to visit the graveyard, but couldn't fathom what, much less who. She spent majority of the day trying to remember what it was that brought her to those grounds. Moreover, how did she get back to her home? Did she sleepwalk? Is she even a sleepwalker? How would she be able to tell if she was? This mystery birthed a visit to the local library where she now sat and continued many more attempts to remember.

In her head, Emery pictured the way the night look, cool and steady. She remembered crossing through town and looking up to see the gate of The Sacred Heart. She could hear the crunching sound of gravel beneath her feet. As she traipsed through the manicured grass and tombstones, she heard something but as she moves to investigate her new found discovery, she draws blank. Not blank, but as if her memory simply quit. Time and time again she tried pushing further passed that odd sound, whatever it was, but nothing emerged. It was all black. It got so frustrating for Emery, she began to feel sharp pains at her temples if she focused too hard.

Surrounded by the towering bookshelves and the pleasant aroma of aged books, Emery glanced up the moment Shelley and her mother entered Hemlock Grove's public library. Books she had accumulated were scattered across the table before Emery, most of the medical sort. Since Emery had lost the better part of four hours, she thought maybe she had suffered some sort of amnesia. Instead of drawing attention to herself by asking Riley, she headed to the library for answers. She leaned back in her chair and watched as Shelley veered left, approaching a small group of children seated upon the floor. Shelley cupped her hands together at the front, her head was drooped low to ensure the veil of her black hair obscured her deformed face.

All at once, they reacted with tiny screams, scattering the area. One boy stood, rooted in position as a dark stain began to flourish in the bouts of his zipper. Another boy, restrained to the confines of a stroller, reached forth and tugged gently upon the seam of Shelley's grey cardigan, seeking her attention, and undeterred by the commotion she had cause. Happy to see one soul was not reviled, Shelley responded with a gentle wave. The mother of the curious tyke shuddered and pulled the stroller back. She wheeled it around and hurried to the far side of the library, away from the storyteller and the monster that was Shelley. At this moment, Shelley's mother appeared. She took hold of her daughter's arm and steered her away from the fuss, adding a glowering _psst!_ as she swatted the air.

Emery stood, slapping her books on dementia and amnesia closed. She grabbed her backpack and skirted around towards the corresponding side while keeping Shelley in view. Upon the moment Shelley's mother moved away towards the reception desk, Emery advanced quickly, light on her feet.

She snuck up on the gentle beast and whispered headily, "Gotcha!" as she gripped Shelley's broad shoulders. Emery's peer stirred and twisted around, gleaming with palpable excitement. Emery's gaze caught a fleeting light that flashed across Shelley's freckled cheeks. She ignored it and sat next to the girl.

"Hey there," Emery chirped with a smile that reached her grey eyes.

"Hello," Shelley's disembodied voice followed.

"What brings you to the great dwellings of knowledge that is a library?"

"Mother's wishes." As Shelley responded her mother appeared, a stack of books precariously held above slender, and well-manicured hands. The tall, dark-headed woman dropped the books onto the table like heavy bricks. The clap struck the silent library like a gunshot and caused Emery to jump. In under three seconds, Emery was intimidated by Shelley's mother.

"Who might you be?" The woman inquired with dark eyes and perfectly arched brows. Her obsidian hair came in down in tumbling curls over pale skin and a elegant white fitted dress.

"Hi, I'm, uh, Emery." Emery gave a tight smile. It hurt the young girl to stare into the flawless beauty that scowled before her, but Emery couldn't tear her eyes away, for fear of what dispute that would entice. Emery licked her lips nervously.

"Hello, uh-Emery." The woman mocked with an articulated accent of posh and priggish demean. "Do you mind?" With her eyes, she gestured to her splay of books and silent daughter. Shelley's hands were tucked between her knees and her eyes cast down.

Emery glanced at the stack of books, reading the spines in one glance. "Oh, yeah. Sorry." Emery responded, embarrassed. She stood, slung her backpack over her shoulder and pressed a hand against Shelley's arm. "See you at school, Shel." She squeezed gently and left the library with her heart in her throat.

* * *

><p>Emery stepped through the front door of her home and stopped short. The weight of her backpack slid the strap from her shoulder and plummeted to the floor. What was once shambles filled with random assortments of furniture, dust, and chaos that was her home, now appeared squared away and cleaned. Music even played softly in the background and upon the dining room table a candle was lit.<p>

"Riley?" Emery called, remaining at the entrance in case what responded was not Riley, but something that typically looked and sounded like Riley, but never was. The door to her sisters room came open and out stepped her sibling. Her blonde hair was washed and her skin cleaned. She was dressed in PT gear and tennis shoes. She looked lively and well rested, like the seventeen year old Riley she once knew.

"Riley, what the hell is going on?" As Emery said this, a collection of tiny orange containers caught her eye. There had to be at least four different types of prescription medicine upon the snack bar. Two lay on their side, the others, upright. An empty glass beside them.

Riley stepped out and glanced around. "I cleaned the place up." she said.

"I see that." Emery noted, she kept her gaze on the orange bottles. "What are those for?" she asked with a pointed stare.

It took a moment for Riley to consider an answer. She took a deep breath, and answered with a dwindling sigh, "Antidepressants, a couple of antipsychotics, and something for insomnia. Dr. Godfrey is still helping me with my problems."

"Antipsychotics?" _You don't say? _"Insomnia, really? I thought I was the only one who couldn't sleep." said Emery.

"I can," Riley began, "It just takes a lot of alcohol to get me there." Riley moved from the bedroom door and entered the small kitchen.

She glanced over her shoulder and said, "Do you know what today is?" A coy smile lifted the corners of Riley's mouth. Emery's heart panged. How long had it been since she'd seen Riley smile?

Riley then pulled the fridge open and retrieved a large white box. Emery stepped away from the door to get a better view. She kicked her book bag out of her path and shut the door. Riley sat the box down on the snack bar and planted her hands on either side.

"Someday I want to be able to sit down and talk to you about the things I've done." Her older sister began. She took a deep breath and struggled with her words. "And not just to you, but to a lot others." She quickly brushed away a tear and added, "When I'm well." She cleared her throat and respired with subtle relief.

"This is for you," Riley flashed her a wounded grin. She thumbed the edges and lifted the lid, revealing a large white frosted cake with purple edges. Across the top was writing of the sort, matching the same royal purple that decorated its perimeter.

"Shit," Emery said beneath her breath.

"Happy Birthday 18th, baby sister."

* * *

><p>"How did you forget such a monumental event?" Shelley typed with one hand. She dropped the stylus and sank the prongs of a fork into the soft morsel.<p>

"I haven't celebrated my birthday in years," Emery admitted reluctantly as she licked remnants of icing from the top of her lip. "I almost forgot people still do that."

Shelley smiled as she crammed a mouthful of vanilla cake into her mouth. Emery knew Shelley had an appetite and with this knowledge she delivered the biggest slice of cake she could manage without Riley wondering where half the cake went. Shelley chewed closed-mouth and wiped away traces of the purple frosting with a napkin while Emery stared out of the window. A red Jaguar pulled up, two teenage boys got out. Emery narrowed her eyes at the car. She recognized it as the one who nearly ran her over on her way to Kilderry Park.

_Jerk_, she thought.

"So my sister's been seeing this psychiatrist recently, Dr. Norman Godfrey." Emery began, but stopped short as Shelley began to flutter her hands around in excitement. She sat her fork down gently and fumbled for her phone.

"My uncle!" she typed.

Emery tilted her head. "Is he really?"

Shelley nodded enthusiastically.

Emery reflected. "He's a nice man, kind of tired, don't you think?" He seemed to have his own qualms to deal with. It was palpable on his weary expression and the graying of his hair. Several encounters she had with him suggested he was drunk or still hungover, but she wouldn't mention that to Shelley.

"The burden of my uncle's work weighs heavy on him. Their problems become his problems." Shelley's disembodied voice explained.

Emery finished up her piece of cake and ambled towards Shelley's massive bed. She flopped down, face first, and took a deep breath of the clean linens. Her legs jutted out from the edge as she surrendered to the cotton folds. Finally Riley was getting help; this was good news. It sucked that it took this long, yes, but at least it had arrived. Now suddenly eighteen, a lot of things opened up for her.

A knock struck Shelley's door, diverting both girls attention to it's provenance.

"Come in," Shelley's artificial voice chirped. Still strung lethargically across the bed, Emery rolled onto her side and expected Shelley's stiff mother to enter. Despite her evident opulence and unwaning beauty, the woman was, for a lack of better words, a fucking cunt.

The door eased open and she was met by the pinnacle of eye candy. He was tall and lean with snowy skin and verdant green eyes. Next to him was his polar opposite, but sat in close proximity on the attraction measure. The more she looked the first male over, the more she realized he was the Jaguar's operator and this slightly unnerved her. Under his ostentatious garb and priggish complexity, Emery hated that he was so flawless. The latter was a scruffy tan thing with ice-blue eyes. His eyes darted between Jaguar and Emery. Was there something she should be aware of?

Uncomfortable, Emery glanced at Shelley as she hopped, less that gracefully, from her chair and stomped towards the boys. She wrapped her mighty arms around both of them and squeezed them together, simultaneously hugging. They groaned under exertion and Jaguar patted her against the back and wheezed a little laugh.

"Good evening, Shelley." Jaguar huffed.

"Hey pretty lady," the second boy cringed.

She dropped them to the floor and clapped her hands happily. Emery could hear her heaving breaths from the bedside.

Jaguar rubbed his nose casually and said, "We came up here to have a talk with your friend."

Upon this discovery, Emery sat up. Why would they need to speak to her? Was he going to apologize for nearly running her over? If so, maybe she misjudged him. Guilt washed over her for her prejudice nature. She stilled as the boys entered the room and Shelley shut the door. The blue-eyed boy hung back as Jaguar closed in. He sat down on the foot of the bed and gazed at Emery.

Should she say 'Hello, my name is Emery?' or did he already know that?

"Do you remember me?" Jaguar began.

Emery perked a brow. "Yeah," she grumbled.

This apparently wasn't the correct answer. He glanced at Blue Eyes and then back to Emery. "From where?"

"I was walking to the park and you came flying around the corner, honking your horn at me." Emery managed without sibilating.

Jaguar considered this. He pursed his plump lips and said, "Yeah, but that's not what I'm talking about. Anywhere else?"

Emery shrugged, "I don't think so. Why? Why does that matter? Did you do something?"

Shelley dropped her head and wrapped her hands around her torso. Over Jaguar's shoulder she watched Shelley turn away from the interrogation. Blue Eyes came to her side and rubbed against her back affectionately.

"I did," Jaguar's voice cut into her distraction. She looked back to him. "Because I thought it would help, but we need answers now, and you are the only one who has them."

Suddenly Emery felt scared. Shelley grimaced a noise from across the room. Her hands flew up and cupped her ears. Emery's heart crept into her throat from apprehension.

"What did you do?" Emery asked carefully.

Jaguar stood, came around the bed, and sat next to her. Blue Eyes stayed at Shelley's side, continuously soothing her.

When she glanced back to Jaguar, Emery found she couldn't move under his stare. She swallowed and he reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

"This is going to hurt, Emery. I'm sorry." Jaguar whispered.

Emery went to move but his other hand gripped her face. He held her there in place as his eyes bore into her.

She felt the prickling of fear climbing from the base of her spine and upward until it wrapped a vise hold around her chest. She couldn't breathe nor scream, though she desperately wanted to. The weight of his stare began against her eyes and then moved, penetrating into her head. The proverbial pain she felt this morning returned tenfold. Her body began to shake.

His mouth was moving but she couldn't hear what he was saying. She lifted her arms to shove him off of her. Her fingers snared the opening of his sweater. She clenched the material and used it as leverage to push him off. But he leaned forward, now pinning her to Shelley's bed under his weight. Their chest met and he sagged against her.

His mouth was still moving, but she couldn't hear him over the sound of her own scream. Then she realized it wasn't _hers_, but someone else entirely and it was happening in her head. Beneath her, the smell of clean linens and Jaguar's cologne disappeared, replacing it with carrion and dirt. The metallic tang of blood also hung in the air. The screaming continued as he stared into her eyes.

_Roman, not Jaguar_, she realized. _Peter. Brooke Bluebell. Lisa Willoughby._ A fresh grave, carved open by the sinking sounds of shovels slicing though the earth. A girl's scream as she tore through the grove, a snapping beast at her wake. The slick wet blood. The mastication of joules crunching against bone and muscle. A boy no longer a boy, but a wolf.

_Crunch, crunch, crunch!_

Her eyes rolled into the back of her head as her body continued to tremble. She began recollecting things she knew she would have never forgotten on her own accord. Unless she was suffering the same ailment as Riley?

A shattering pain exploded in her head and Emery cried out in a strangling sound. Roman was not deterred and remained atop of her.

Why was this happening to her? How did she forget the murders and things she had seen?

As the pain turned incapacitating, she held onto Roman just as Peter emerged at the bedside. Her hand shot out and grabbed his shirtsleeve, but she couldn't hold onto them hard enough, the pain was taking her away. She struggled to stall the beckoning of sleep, but the strain was undermining. Her fingers turned slack and finally, she succumbed to the darkness.

* * *

><p><strong>Another update, sorry for the delay. R&amp;R!<strong>

**(If you feel any of them are OOC, please let me know. I cannot explain how often I abandon stories because someone wasn't acting in character. I don't wish this upon any readers! Constructive criticism is also appreciated.) **


	13. Chapter 13

After school and under a waxing gibbous moon she glimpsed at in the overcast, Emery visited Kilderry Park where she had witnessed Brooke Bluebell's mutilation. Then she traversed the thick grove until she spotted Peter's similarly shanty home. Afterwards, she cut through the forest until she came across the back portion of her property. Her eyes scanned the cold ground for any signs of Lisa Willoughby's less-than-ideal downfall, but the area was unscathed. She stepped on a branch just to hear it snap and crossed into the backyard.

As she entered, she found Riley in the kitchen, dressed sensibly (instead of the consistent underwear getup) with her hair fashioned in a smooth ponytail.

"Hey, Emery." Riley grinned with her induced happiness as she cleaned the dishes. "Was that cake good or what? I found most of it gone this morning!"

Emery nodded as she shut the back door, "Yeah, it was good." She crossed the tiny living room and sat down on the couch, observing Riley as she cleaned. So this is what it's like, she thought as she pulled her legs into a crossed position as she gazed at Riley with a keen eye. It was going to take some getting used to, that was evident. Besides, who knew how long it would before the apprehension she felt coming home finally left? Moreover, what if Riley developed an immunity to the medication? Or worse, a sort of resistance that required her to consume more than the recommended dose?

Emery quickly realized she was looking at it in the worst possible light. Couldn't she just be happy Riley had finally gotten help, and that the effects were of the positive nature? Besides, she hadn't been cuffed in...how many days?

"I brought some over to my friend's after school. She loves cake." Emery admitted in the midst of her thoughts. "She has quite the appetite, so I brought her a big piece."

Riley began moving the clean dishes into a tray where they could air dry. "I applied for a job." Riley said, changing the subject.

"Oh, did you?" Emery casually perked her brows with mild interest. "Where at?"

"Just a convenience store in town."

Emery nodded as she pictured Riley working beyond these walls without Emery to watch over her. She eyed the front door and remembered the moon was fat on her walk home which meant a number of things now that she remembered. Her proverbial trepidation stirred and she got up and locked all the bolts.

"I'm heading to bed," she announced into the room without glancing at her sister. She wasn't used to the nonsensical chitchat, nothing against Riley, she'd just rather not.

Outside it began to rain. Riley didn't respond as she went to her bedroom and took off her shoes and clothes. After showering, she crawled into bed and listened to the rainfall. With her idle mind she couldn't help but rehash the things she so graciously forgot because of Roman. How he did do it? She thought for a moment and then considered it futile. Why did it matter at this point? How did Peter turn into a wolf? These were things that would never make sense, no matter how well they were explained. Hemlock Grove was a poisonous thicket, just like its name. Somewhere along the way, she considered this the truth.

She pulled the covers up to her chin and curled into a ball on her side. Hours passed as she lay there. The sunlight had gone away, prematurely snuffed out by the thick, ugly overcast that now shed its weight. Riley had finished cleaning the kitchen and began watching TV. The voices were too faint to distinguish their words. Overhead the rain came down harder as a clap of thunder rolled. Emery slipped her socks off and discarded them onto the floor.

The lamp from her nightstand flickered for a moment and then went out entirely. She reached an arm out and checked the switch. In the living room, the voices fell silent. She heard Riley curse and retreat to the far end of the trailer.

She brought her arm back into the security of her blanket.

Sometime among the tapping fingertips of rainfall, a more distinct sound startled Emery awake. Her eyes shot open, regarding the darkness around her and the hum of rain. A dream she had faded away and left her questioning if the sound was real or not. She stirred within her bed, pulling the covers closer and closed her eyes.

Tap! Tap! Tap!

She sat up as her head turned towards the source. A figure stood at her window. The silhouette of a man. Fear kept her from screaming and falling out of bed and as a clash of thunder illuminated the sky, she saw that it was Roman.

"What the hell?" she murmured, crawling across her bed towards her window. She released the latch and pushed the frame up. "What are you doing here? What did I say? I told you to leave me alone."

He was drenched to the bone. His blonde hair plastered to his face as the rain carved gnarled paths against his features. The cold poured into her room.

"I'm sorry," he said over the storm. "I really am."

Emery stared at him wearily, the way his green eyes looked black in the night made her uncomfortable.

"Apology accepted, now go away." She rose her hands to lower the window back down, but Roman put his forearms against the seal.

"Please," he said. "I have no where else to go."

She glanced at her bedroom door. Surely Riley was sound asleep, possibly medicated. She sat back on her heels and after a moment's consideration, she nodded.

"Alright, come in."

He crawled through the window and by order of Emery, relinquished his wet clothes and now stood naked in her bedroom as she rummaged for the largest hoodie in her possession. She had sweats that could fit him surprisingly, considering his height, and finally she found the hoodie. She handed him the clothes and he dressed with stiff movements. She watched, unabashed by his nudity within the shadows and he didn't seem to mind. He had a snowy complexion and the subtle accent of muscle along the soft plains of his skin. Definitive lines of muscle tapered from his hips and downward towards his groin. She followed the V-line with her eyes until Roman fashioned the sweats about his waist before she could see any further. She moved then, appearing aloof as she crawled into the warmth of her bed. There was no other place for Roman to sit in her room, so the bed was the only apparent option. She got close to the edge and pulled back the covers. He crawled in carefully and faced her.

The rain advanced into a near deafening downpour while flashes of lightning flickered into her room. She brought the covers close so he couldn't stare at her cleavage under her camisole.

"I feel like I don't know you or like you well enough to be sharing the same bed." she muttered into the darkness.

Roman stirred, pressing his hands into prayer and resting his head upon them. "Not many people like me."

"Is that why you're here?" she asked.

"I'm here because I have no where else to go." he reinstated. Another flash of lightning danced into the room and Emery could see his pupils that swallowed the green of his irises.

"You can't go home?"

"That's not a home." he replied tersely.

"Is Shelley alright?" Emery wanted to make sure.

"Yeah, Shelley's fine."

Emery swallowed her sigh of relief, but a question still chipped at the back of her thoughts. "How is it you can make people forget? What kind of person does that?" She realized she should be terrified of him, as well as Peter, who she rarely saw. Despite this, the fear was absent for once. Maybe she had gone insane, or maybe he took her ability to fear away. No, she realized, not likely. She wasn't afraid because he hadn't done anything she hadn't already experienced. Riley could cuff her hard enough in the head to knock Emery out and did on several occasions. He didn't hit her, though she wasn't exactly sure what he did. And for a brief moment, he had allowed her the bliss of ignorance. If anything, she should be mad that he brought the nightmares back to her conscious instead of leaving them in the dark corners of her mind.

"I don't know what you're talking about." he told her.

She knitted her brow, "But-..."

"Too many people were already involved." he interrupted. "We were doing you a favor."

Emery didn't respond. Too many people were involved, he said. How many people? Aside from Peter, who else? Shelley? A number of students at school? They couldn't possibly have seen what she had. And if they did, where were the pitchforks and torches chasing out the evil that had made a home out of Hemlock?

"Am I ugly?" Roman suddenly asked, interrupting her thoughts.

Emery perked a brow. "As a person or physically?" There was no use in inquiring further. He made it clear he didn't want to discuss it.

"Just answer the question, Emery." he snapped, "Am I ugly?" His eyes implored her, darting across her expression.

"No." she replied, stirring slightly. She watched his hand move forward, brushing the blanket from her shoulder. She had worn a tank and shorts to bed. Previously there had been socks but she took them off. He replaced the blanket with a warm hand and she rooted in place. Applying slight pressure, he ushered her onto her back. She obliged, rolling onto her back as he moved the rest of the blanket down to her midriff. He scooted closer to her and fingered the hem of her camisole. He lingered there, playing the fabric between his fingers until she watched his hand disappear beneath it and felt the weight of it against her abdomen.

"How does this feel?" he asked, splaying his fingers wide.

"Unexpected." she answered with a lick of her lips and then, "Warm." Her heart began to hammer, a mixture of panic and something else. He moved, slipping his hand passed the waistband of her shorts and cupping the apex of her sex, enveloping the convex of flesh wholly. His fingers were so long. Her body tensed.

"You're afraid." he whispered, studying her face.

Emery wanted to tell him yes, that she was, but she couldn't find her voice. She nodded instead.

Roman removed his hand and climbed out of bed. The warmth of his head upon her core diminished. "Everyone is afraid."

He bundled the wet heap of clothes and climbed back into bed, crawling over her ineptly. He struggled to get the window up and when he did, he tossed his clothes out into the lawn and exited through the window, back out into the storm.

* * *

><p>Shelley wasn't at school the next day, or the following one. In fact, it was as if she disappeared entirely, leaving Emery alone with the numbing of school and its stale lunches for the rest of the week. In between classes, she scanned the sea of faces for even her brother, Roman. Which still hadn't been announced to her directly, that being said she concluded the relation by putting two and two together. Same last name, same cold mother; siblings. But Roman was nowhere in sight either.<p>

Emery rolled her combination upon her lock and yanked down on the device. It popped free and she began stuffing all of her supplies into its small confinement. It was Friday and she really didn't feel like lugging the weight on her trek back home. As she worked her books into its space, a shifting occurred that toppled her stack of books. They fell behind her Jansport, prompting several things to spill out from its various pockets.

Cursing, Emery knelt and began collecting her pens and highlighters, her gaze skimming over a neatly folded piece of paper. She plucked it up and looked it over. Initially, she thought it to be trash until she read in green gel- pen: READ ME.

Emery made a sort of contemplative noise as she worked the folds back. She caught sight of a drawing within its innards and she hurriedly spread it open.

Her eyes took in three crudely drawn chevrons inscribed in what appeared as brown paint. She ran an index finger over their sticky surface just to make sure. It flaked, getting on her finger and she dusted it off. It was too dense to be paint and so out of curiosity, Emery brought it closer and took a whiff.

A sickening sweet smell assaulted her and the metallic tang of iron followed on her tongue. She gagged, dropping the paper and covering her mouth.

What the fuck! her thoughts screamed. She glanced around quickly as if the culprit was lurking nearby to watch his work, but the halls had emptied, leaving Emery gaping like a fool. She picked it back up again, pinching it at its corner and turned it around.

On the back in the same strokes of blood, she read a small sentence: _May kali i muri may gugli avela..._

_What kind of voodoo bullshit is this?_ she thought, rereading the words over and over again.

She crumbled the paper and then paused. Who in the world would discard such a note in her locker and write it in blood, no less? Emery was both irritated and slightly startled. It was cryptic, she knew this. Three chevrons written in blood and some strange, foreign scripture she couldn't understand. She unballed the paper and looked down at the morbid depiction.

_Kids can be real weird, sometimes._

She cringed at the sight and her stomach rolled. She flipped it over and eyed the words again.

* * *

><p><strong>Some of you will probably google the message, and that's okay. But for the others who wished to wait, that's okay too! It will be translated in the following chapter, which...will be shortly posted after I submit this. Thank you for reading and don't be shy, write me a review! I lub them.<strong>

**By the way, what do you think the chevrons mean?**


	14. Chapter 14

Emery traipsed across the creek with a sense of deja vu. Her boots sludged though the embankment as she came up to the wall she had used to hide from Roman and Peter during his macabre transformation. Due to the rain, the creek had grown in girth and became more of a trickling river than the parched muddy furrow she had fallen in just weeks ago.

She clambered up the wall and stood, dusting off the bracken and mud. As she rose, she now faced the back portion of Peter's property. He was the only thing foreign about Hemlock Grove and she had a sense he was the owner of the nasty note left in her locker.

She mounted the rickety steps and banged against the door.

Something stirred on the far end of the trailer and soon enough, it traveled towards her until the door swung open and she was greeted by Peter's scruffy face. He looked irritated in his boxer briefs.

"What!-" he exclaimed but she interrupted him by slamming an open palm against the glass, the chevron side of the note pressed against it.

"What the fuck is this?" she snapped, her blood boiling.

"Excuse me?" he shot back, peering at the note. He saw the crude chevrons and furrowed a brow.

"Did you do this?" Emery snarled.

A blonde girl stepped out from behind the door, a sheet she had fashioned into a dress clutched her slender frame. "Peter, what's going on?"

"I don't know," he told her over his shoulder. "Just some girl."

"Some girl?" Emery gawked. "Did you put this note in my locker or not?"

"No," he retorted, "I don't even know where your locker is!"

"Fine," she yanked the note down, flipped it over so that she could press the message side against the glass. "Then what does this say?"

She watched as he narrowed his eyes and then widened them with recognition. He reached down and pushed the screen door open. "You might want to come in."

* * *

><p>"<em>The darker the berry, the sweeter it is."<em> Emery repeated, staring at the note that lied face up. "What the hell does that even mean? What does the chevrons mean?"

Peter shrugged with his elbows resting against his knees. "No idea." he said, "But I got a similar note a while back. Except mine was a wolf." he paused, "Which was also drawn in blood."

"_You_ got a note too?" Emery was surprised. "Who could be doing this?"

Peter clapped his hands together and said, "I'm just as curious as you."

"But what does it mean!" Emery nearly shrieked. She was losing patience and not to mention exceedingly nervous in the presence of Peter.

"So that thing I saw in Kilderry wasn't you?"

He shook his head. "You might not remember but the night at the graveyard we gave you the rundown."

She jogged her memory, and he was right, she had no recollection. "Odd." she murmured.

"Yeah," he slid his hands down his thighs and tapped against them lightly. "So are we done here?" He eyed the blonde, still sitting quietly next to Emery.

"No," Emery remarked disdainfully towards his nonchalance. "Someone stuck a note in my locker colored in blood! We are not done here!"

Peter ran his nails across his scalp and his knee began to bounce. "Look I don't know what to tell you, alright? There's something lurking around in Hemlock and I'm going to find it. Just stay out of the way."

"_You're_ going to find it?" Emery echoed. "Where is Roman?" In her mind, she saw him lying next to her, a hand sliding down her soft belly and curving over the mound of her sex. The clap of thunder rolling and flickering its white light across his face. She stifled a relishing shiver.

"What? You didn't hear?" Peter replied incredulously.

She pointed a glare that said _Go on?_

Letha's voice came from the left. "Roman's in a coma."

* * *

><p>They rode in silence and with a closer observation, it was there Emery realized Peter go into a tuff with the pavement and seemingly lost.<p>

"Did you run into my sister?" she joked, darkly from the back seat.

"What?" he asked from shotgun.

She realized he had not met her sister and wouldn't get the joke. Letha made no indication to care what the humor was about. Her pale hands held at ten and two o'clock.

"Nevermind." she whispered, sitting back in seat of Letha Godfrey's car. Earlier after their ordeal, and when Peter realized Emery wasn't taking no for an answer, he introduced the blondes to each other. They were polar opposites in some aspect, but visually similar. If blonde hair and pale eyes were considered _many_ similarities, which they weren't.

Emery thought about tallying up the differences but she decided against it. Why did it matter what she and Letha had in common? _What an absurd idea, _she told herself.

They arrived at the Godfrey's and Shelley was out front, almost expecting their abrupt arrival. Before the car came to a full stop, Emery slung the door open and raced across the gravel towards Shelley, who upon realization, stomped down the steps and met her halfway. Emery threw her arms around Shelley's trunk as she was picked clear off the ground and squeezed. Emery squeezed back with all her might but it paled in the exertion of Shelley's vise-like embrace, almost pushing her lungs of air.

Emery was released and took a hungry breath. "I'm so glad you're here." she beamed, "I've been so bored at school!" Shelley heaved a grinning sigh and picked her up a second time, tossing Emery side to side like a ragdoll.

* * *

><p>They visited Roman up in Shelley's room and a palpable tension arose as the silence took hold. Emery stared down at the boy, unsure what to make of all this. Just the other day he was sharing the narrow space of her bed, touching her in a manner she surely thought would be a disaster for both of them. But she lived and he did not progress any farther than what she allowed. Which was what exactly? Did she actually announce any limitations on his behavior or did it just...happen?<p>

Letha reached over and tucked a curl of hair behind his ear. A blackness came at his roots and for once, Emery realize the boy was not a natural blonde, not like she and Letha. _Odd_, she thought.

"How did this happen?" she whispered into the back of Letha. The girl was as much pregnant as she was beautiful, which was _very._

"Overdose. The doctor said its an induced coma. It's up to him to wake up."

Emery scoffed, "That doesn't make a damn lick of sense."

Peter eyed the both of them as they eyed Roman.

"Overdose on what?" asked Emery.

"Various drugs." Peter's voice said from behind.

Letha turned to glance at him, but Emery stilled. Her eyes wandered from the perfect complexion of his face, to the narrow and small button of his nose, to his plump lips, slack under the spell of sleep. He was not ugly, she recalled in her head. Not in the least. She straightened up and glanced towards Peter.

"I'll be downstairs with Shelley." she said and she moved away from the bed and left.

* * *

><p>Emery woke the next day to the sound of muffled sobbing. She sat upright, startled and disoriented. The sobbing's provenance that of Letha Godfrey. She was perched on the edge of her chair, an arm draped over the railing mounted around Roman's bed. Her blonde hair was fashioned neatly and her small shoulders shook.<p>

Letha heard her stir awake and glanced over. "Oh, sorry." she said meekly, wiping the tears from her eyes. "I didn't mean to wake you."

Emery blinked, still half asleep, and a moment passed before her thoughts caught up. "Is everything okay?" she croaked finally.

Letha sniffed and shook her head. "No."

"...Kay." Emery replied, mechanically. Taking the curt response as the conclusion of their discussion, she laid down and fell back to sleep.

Emery had only drifted back to sleep for a few minutes when another sound erupted her dreams.

A crash echoed across the room followed by the trembling vociferate of Peter's voice.

"Either do exactly what I say or you will never see me again, you stupid little bitch!" He heaved a breath in at the end as if the entire shout took all he could offer.

Wide awake but too wary to move, Emery laid immobile and stared into the wall before her. Someone began to move, heavy footfalls came her way. She tensed and then they were on her, shaking her vigorously. It was Peter.

"Under no circumstances do you let Letha out of your sight. Do you understand me?" He breathed out of his nose, an index figure jutted at her face. It trembled under every rise and fall of his shoulders.

Emery, wide-eyed, nodded. "Yeah, okay." she placated in a small voice, "I won't leave her side." She glanced at Letha whose face still cringed with tears. Her eyes were tinged red and her little hands were in fists.

"I think you're both full of fucking shit." Letha managed on a uneven voice. "You think _I'm_ the one who needs protecting? Look at you!" She cried, and Emery honed in on the scratches and bruises that covered his face. "Look at him." Peter's face turned away as he eyed Roman from across the room. Emery was still, too shocked to breathe and didn't look at anyone but passed Peter's head and into the vaulted ceilings.

Having only bits and pieces of the conversation, Emery assumed they had been at it for more than just the few seconds before waking her. It was uncomfortable, sitting there, watching Letha cry and Peter fume.

* * *

><p>"Dang." Emery muttered when she realized she left her clothes on the floor. A puddle had formed during her shower and crept across the tile until it came in contact with her only pair of jeans. Now they were drenched and she hadn't anything to change into besides her shirt. She thought perhaps Shelley would have a set of clothes to fit her, but that would be a stretch. The girl was colossal; a shirt from her would fit Emery like a moo moo.<p>

It was the following day and still Emery and Letha made little inclination to get to know one another. The girl appeared devastated, buried underneath the ailment of her cousin and her angst-riddle boyfriend, Peter, while the world outside appeared the fall apart. Roman's condition hadn't improved, but neither had it declined. Even Shelley appeared on edge and often avoided the attic entirely, leaving it to Emery and a sleeping prince.

Tightening the hold on her towel with one hand, she cracked open the bathroom door and peered out into Shelley's room. Steam rolled passed her onto the wooden floor but the cost was clear so she moved forward. Her t-shirt was on the bed and it was long enough to cover most of her ass until Shelley returned. That way she could take her jeans and underwear to the washer and not have to borrow such intimate items.

_You should have packed an overnight bag, _her mind chided.

As she moved forward, wet footprints issued onto the hardwood floor. She was paces away from the bed where her shirt resided. But then she slipped. Her heel came down in a soft wet clap, gliding under her weight and she plummeted. Her arms flew out to catch her fall, prompting the towel to unravel as she dropped to a heap onto the hard floor.

The towel abandoned her decency and she fell with a satisfying smack onto her backside. The air expelled from her lungs and she gritted against the pain in her hip and elbows. A tinge of cold came over her as the steam from behind her dissipated, leaving her exposed to the cool temperature of Shelley's room. Emery winced as she sat up, rubbing her bottom tenderly. And then she heard a voice whisper into the room.

"What time is it?"

And she glanced up dumbstruck, meeting the hard-candy green stare of Roman Godfrey who was alive and now awake.


	15. Chapter 15

**Warning Gore**

* * *

><p>Emery thought about the towel, and the cold, and the wet tendrils of her hair that hung down her back in ribbons of gold but she did not think about how naked she was. Roman stared at her, undeterred by her nudity. Then she remembered.<p>

"It's almost seven." she said, answering him belatedly.

He moved, tugging at the tubes and monitoring pads that stuck to his frame until they were strewn across the bed. He ran his hands through his hair. "Where's Peter?" he asked.

Emery had reached for the towel, slowly gathering it back around her body.

They met each other's gazes again.

"Don't be ashamed." he told her with steady eyes.

Something disconnected and Emery felt herself nod. The towel dropped from her grasp as he climbed out of bed and left.

* * *

><p>The rest of the day was spent in the company of the Godfrey girls and she failed to admit Roman was awake. When Emery wasn't with Shelley during class, she was sitting next to Letha in between periods. It came to both their conclusions simultaneously that their main objective was just to grant Peter's wish. He wanted someone to have a close eye on Letha, despite how evident she detested this.<p>

After school, the two gathered in her car and headed to another impressive Godfrey estate where the evening droned on. Emery kept to herself on the far side of Letha's room. Occasionally they entertained one another with superficial conversations, but it was apparent Letha's mind was elsewhere.

The room was an oppressing quiet filled with the proverbial clock ticking and the sound of passing cars. It came to Letha suddenly and upon this realization she felt like Emery knew something she did not.

"Why are you here?" she asked into the heavy silence, stirring the other blonde from her corner of the room.

Letha saw her glance up and blink. She hesitated on replying and then she stopped.

Emery licked her lips and said, "To watch out over you."

_No_, Letha thought, _that's not it._

"What do you know about Peter and Roman's relationship? What are you three not telling me? And how come Roman's _n__or _Peter have never mentioned you?"

This issued a small grin. "It's part of being a ghost." Emery told her. "I know as much about your cousin and Peter as you do."

"You're lying." Letha deadpanned. "Tell me. I can't stop worrying."

Emery stretched her legs out and regarded her toes. She wiggled them and then spoke.

"It's a full moon tonight, you know that?" She said, wiggling her toes and looked back to Letha, who nodded.

She continued, "A few weeks ago I saw something I know I shouldn't have, _wished_ I shouldn't have." In her head she couldn't decide whether that moment was at Kilderry or behind Peter's house. Perhaps both.

"And what was that?" Letha inquired, strolling to her bed where she sat down with her legs folded beneath her.

Emery shrugged. "Things that aren't supposed to happen," she uttered. "It's like going your entire life in a coma and one day, you wake up and you realize you were never asleep. You were always there, aware of everything around you despite how much it felt like a dream."

"Please," Letha rolled her eyes, exasperated with Emery's roundabout answer. "Just tell me what you saw."

"I saw Peter change into a werewolf."

* * *

><p>The snow moon had passed but not without staking its claim. Emery learned about the Sheriff's daughter and that they had been taken during the night. In their bedrooms no less.<p>

Letha was standing before her, phone in hand, appearing just as shocked with the information as she. It was her father who had called and delivered the news. A patrol car had been stationed just outside during the night and even then it hadn't guaranteed their safety.

"I guess you're job is done here." Letha muttered, stuffing her phone into the pocket of her thick peacoat. "I made it to the next day without a scratch."

Emery nodded, squinting against the winter sun with her hands stuffed into their own pockets. "Good luck on the delivery." She gestured with a nod. Letha pressed a hand into the swell of her belly and smiled.

Emery walked back home. In her mind's eye she thought of Roman and those green eyes that looked her own that morning. The way they didn't flinch at her scars or the stark exposure that chilled her skin from the cool air. He saw her and she felt it. In her chest her heart had fluttered with excitement. She palmed the breast of her jacket, feeling the drum of life and all that was left to live beneath it. She'd never had sex before but she had been led to the door time and time again. Each time closer than the previous and more terrifying. But here and now, she wondered what it would be like for the first time with Roman.

She hopped over a log as a smile crept across her lips. She felt Roman as if he were there, tracing long fingers down the plains of her soft skin. The veins beneath his wintry complexion rippling under the riff of his touch. The wake of it all was scorching in a way Emery could probably never describe with words. She had never wanted to kiss anyone in her life until this very moment. She bit her lip instead while the grin lingered, resolving under every step through the thicket. She was almost home.

She reached the highway and glanced left and right. She then thought about Letha, the pouty blonde with keen intelligence as she dubbed the highway clear to cross. She liked Letha for what little she knew about the girl. During their stay together, however reluctant, Letha was kind to Emery. She didn't berate her, or inquire with little sensitivity on Emery's circumstances. It went without saying Letha knew about the PTSD-riddled veteran just across town. Her father was the psychiatrist of the aforementioned. How could she not?

Emery kicked a twig out of the way and bounded up the stairs in a single leap. She reached for the door latch and paused as a chord of thunder rumbled. She brought her eyes skyward just in time to see the quick flicker of lightning, shortly to follow was its tumbling growl. Her thumb pressed down on the latch and she yanked open the door without looking away from the billowing storm. Another one in a matter of days. Even from where she stood she could make out the rolling motion as the clouds gathered girth and movement. As if realizing its detection, another roll of thunder came and went. A flash ensued thereafter and several more and the wind began to pick up.

Emery turned away and ducked inside. She shut the door and hit the light switch but found it inoperable. She tried again and again, still nothing.

"Riley?" she called into the darkness. All the blinds were shut and curtains were drawn. Suddenly Emery froze with familiarity. It was finally happening, she realize. The drugs no longer worked and here Emery walked in on a nightmare she thought to have woken from. She pressed her back into the door and tried the lightswitch again but it was in vain. She didn't want to move or speak, maybe Riley didn't hear her come home. Or maybe she did and was waiting the shadows with a baseball bat, or worse, a knife?

In her chest, her heart painfully hammered against her ribs as she attempted to conjure a plan. Already her hand had moved back, encasing the knob with a tight grip that began to sweat. She could run. Yes, she thought, she should run. One swift yank of the door and she'd be out onto the porch in broad daylight, or what was left with the pressing storm.

As Emery stood there rooted to the floor, her senses came to life under the weight of the darkness and she noticed a smell. A smell that hung like wet metal on her tongue and lingered even when she turned her head away. As she focused on it, the more sickening it became until it was assaulting her senses. She gagged, wrenched around to yank open the door but slipped.

For the second time in one day, Emery fell, but this time wasn't hardwood floor that awaited her, but soaked carpeting. The material made a slick belching sound as she landed and the iron tang overran her senses, leaving her gasping and gagging for fresh air. She twisted around, her hands digging into the wet curls of carpet. She pushed herself onto her hands and knees and felt her jeans soaking up with liquid. It was all over her now. On her face, her hands and elbows, along her knees and slick against her boots. She scrambled back, feeling for the door with slippery hands. She found the knob and yanked it open ineptly. The daylight flooded the space, bringing for clean air and visibility that allowed Emery to finally see what had been done.

She was covered in blood. The living room was smeared entirely by a harsh crimson that painted the floor, the walls and the ceiling.

And on the couch, waiting to be noticed, were pieces of Riley.


	16. Chapter 16

**Warning : Sex consisting of varies bodily fluids. LEMON. LEMON. LEMON!**

* * *

><p>And then it came; the crash. Emery blinked and she was standing in the living room of her home, no longer on the porch under the darkening overcast. The electricity had returned. When she couldn't recall. But before her, neatly arranged despite its crimson disarray, was her sister. She'd laid Riley down against the couch and gathered what she could of her and placed it accordingly. Her figure was in shambles. Her neck was chewed but not consumed and her mouth was askewed during the last seconds of life, a perpetual scream that echoed silently into death. Blood spatter decorated the walls and ceiling.<p>

By now Emery was coated up to her elbows. Her blouse was splotched in red and her thighs were soaked from carrying pieces to the couch. Ever so often, she would glance at the wall where a gnarled marking of three chevrons had been ignored until recently.

The corner of her eyes had seen it, but she refused to face it head on. Now she couldn't look away. Three perfectly stacked obtuse angles dripping at the edges, inscribed by her sister's scarlet mess much like the note she found. Emery turned away and walked to Riley's bedroom. She opened the closet and retrieved a uniform. She came back to the living room and began dressing her deceased sister.

Any moment now the grief would hit her.

Any moment, she thought, her knees would buckle and a wail would slip passed her lips.

She was biding time until then, bracing for the inevitable despair.

Once Emery tucked the slick entrails away and buttoned up the blouse, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to Riley's cold skin. Her sister had been dead since she returned from Fallujah. It had killed her and sent her back an empty shell that Emery didn't recognize. This was just death catching up to unfinished business. There was no going back, not for Riley.

Death always had a way of finding them. It carved with a blunt knife and left an infection that festered and spread. It crossed oceans and rivers, scaled mountains, and plummeted to the dark belows where it waited for another moment to take what was left of Emery. It had found her parents, utilizing their own hands to bring the fate of their lives to a tumultuous and sudden end. It had sent them to foster homes where it came in different forms and faces, pretending to be people who cared and made faulty promises.

It came in uniforms with loaded M-16s and a hunger that only flesh could satisfy. It fell with the bombs and followed the trail of blood against the sand.

And sometimes it came as a wolf with an appetite that could never be sated.

Emery took the sergeant insignia from Riley's blouse, three stacked chevrons, and she placed it in her pocket and left with little direction.

* * *

><p>Roman had just finished wrapping a pound of cooked bacon in wax paper when his mother entered the kitchen.<p>

"I believe," she said, "that's enough cholesterol to see you comfortably into your dotage."

Roman ignored her, and continued manipulating the wax paper.

"Also," she added, "you have a very upset guest upstairs with Shelley. You'll see that she's not _quite_ realized her plight, unfortunately. Perhaps you can see to it yourself." She padded him against the shoulder and exited the kitchen. He sat the bacon aside and quickly climbed the stairs.

Without knocking, Roman entered the attic room and braced for something else entirely. Emery was there, seated next to Shelley and her luminescence filled the space of her bedroom. Shelley had the girl close and rocked as she cried. Neither party made any indication they were aware of Roman's arrival. He stepped in and quietly shut the door.

"Shelley?" Roman whispered carefully, "Shelley, what's going on?"

His sister turned her head, tears had streamed rows down her glowing face and she muffled a moan. Roman stepped around until he could see the second girl. He rooted to the floor.

"Emery?" he managed, regarding the blood that covered most of the girl. It clumped in her hair, smears of it were against her cheek and majority of her clothes were stained red. "Holy fuck." he whispered in a breath.

In a single stride, Roman closed the distant as Shelley relinquished the girl. She pulled out her phone and stylus before Roman could bombard her with questions.

"It took her sister." Shelley responded.

Roman turned Emery's head upward and stared into her vacant eyes. Her pupils were dilated, snuffing out any sign of her grey irises.

"Shelley, help me get her into the bathroom." Roman said, and they stood, towing the catatonic Emery towards the bathroom. Shelley abandoned them halfway to open the door and Roman and Emery went inside. The door shut as Roman asked Shelley to find clean clothes. He turned the bathtub on hot and faced her.

She was standing immobile and covered in blood. He took her by the shoulders and gazed into her eyes. The will came and he spoke through it.

"Look at me." But she did not.

"Tell me what happened."

Only silence.

The faucet roared with flooding water and steam began to rise in the room.

"Can you wash yourself?" he asked, hunkering down to see into her face. He reached up and pulled a plastered strand of hair from her cheek. She didn't even blink. Roman sighed and began working the front of her shirt. He peeled it off and dropped to the floor. Next was her pants. The button broke as he rummaged it and the zipper was stuck. He finally just yanked it from her hips and helped her step out of the heap, the only response she provided him. Now she was down to her underwear and could see just how many scars surfaced her skin. Welts of puckered flesh ran like lashes against her ribs and back and burn marks pocketed along her thighs. Several superficial knicks resided just below her belly button.

Slowly he unfastened her bra and it too fell to the floor. He tried ignoring her breast as he thumbed the hem of her panties and pulled them down. They fell easily and he carefully steered her towards the filling tub.

She lifted a foot and stepped into the water, then the other followed. She sank down, submerging slowly as he lowered her into the tub. The steam wafted up and the water lapped at the undersides of her breast. The smell of blood thickened with the heat and Roman's stomach growled in emptiness. He swallowed and reached for a sponge. He dipped it into the water and squeeze, then brought it to her shoulder.

"It ends tonight," he told her, rubbing away the caked blood and turning the water red. "Tonight, we're going to kill it."

She didn't respond so he continued to clean her. He washed her legs and feet, her forearms and underneath her nails where the blood had collected. He lathered her blonde hair, working the dried blood from her scalp and tresses until finally she was cleaned. The water was drained. He used the shower to rinse off the rest and had her step out of the tub.

He was drying her off when she finally spoke, telling him to kiss her. It was so low, he feared he had imagined it.

"What?" he asked, pausing with the towel pressed against her.

"Kiss me." she said with more resolve, she turned her head up and eyed him with large, grief-stricken eyes. "I know you want to."

Roman had wanted to on more than one occasion. He always had a way with girls, and by way, he meant persuasion. This one on the other hand was not under his control in the slightest. He took advantage of the opportunity. He dipped his head down and brushed his lips to hers. It was a quick peck. Roman looked her over, the flushed color of her skin from the water, still dripping. The hunger came again, he kissed her a second time, followed by another and then another. Emery cupped the back of his head and held her against his mouth, inviting him inside with tantalizing licks.

Roman dropped the towel to the floor and they stepped into each other. His hands came down and lifted her by her ass. She wrapped her legs around him and he turned towards the sink where he sat her down as her fingers worked his blouse. She broke several getting the fabric parted but eventually it was removed and slung to the floor. Roman scoured her body in the meantime, cupping and kneading her firm breast he was aching to taste. He leaned down and took a nipple into his mouth as his hands unbuckled his belt. His pants slid off and kicked to the side and their mouths met a second time.

"Fuck me," she breathed against his lips. "Fuck me until it hurts." He grabbed her by her hips, pulling her closer to the edge and fuck boxers, he barely removed them. He shoved the fabric down to far enough to free himself and then everything slowed.

The steam suspended itself in the air as he met her mouth again. He took her legs into his hands under the knees and spread them wide. Her legs parted and he felt her then, the wet folds inviting him inside and with a slow thrust, he pushed himself into her core.

Roman stiffened and Emery moaned out as he filled her. Her walls were constricted around him and the warmth was enveloping. Roman closed his eyes as he eased in deeper, stalling the unworldly urge to ravage her until they were both spent. He wanted it to last.

"Hurt me." she whispered, clawing at his ass. "Fuck me until it hurts."

He withdrew and slammed into her a second time and then again until she could only hold on to the edges of the counter under the thrusting of his hips. Her breast bounced and he watched them greedily. He was building, he felt it. It started at the base of his spine and his chest began to sweat. She was wet for him, making the penetration effortless. She wanted it as badly as he did and he couldn't move fast enough.

He grabbed her again, lifting her from the counter and sinking to the floor with grace. Now she was on top and she bounced on him, taking his length entirely with her weight when she sank. She leaned forward and what Roman expected as a kiss turned into a bite. A drop of pleasure in a flood of pain, he tasted the blood and when she pulled back, he saw it on her lips. Something feral came over him, seeing his blood marring another and he grabbed her face and pulled her mouth back down to his and he raked his teeth against her. Her own blood issued and he pulled, and fucked, and sucked, and fucked some more. He took her hips firmly and pulled, delving as far as he could manage and grinding their hips together.

Somehow they managed to fall onto the floor along their backs. Roman was on top again, his hands holding her legs up as he plunged himself deeper. His blood and her blood colored their mouths like smeared lipstick and she kept asking for more. She was sick. _He_ was sick. Blood and sex never came together without a price and here was this shameless creature writhing beneath him begging for it with paralleled insatiate. He had seen it, the sickness that lurked inside. The distress that manifested and reared an ugly head that told her she wasn't of worth, that stripped her of a healthy life of laughter and love. It was pain and pain brought death as well as life. And it was through that particular life that she lived.

With her own hand, she raked across her breast, creating several welts of redness and in the middle nearest to a pink nipple were little beads of blood sprouted. He leaned onto her, and took the bud into his mouth and ran his tongue in circles. The blood was sweet on his tongue and he ached for more. They were panting. The steam heightening the smell of sweat, sex and iron. He was so close and she tightened around his length until the edge neared. He fought the pressure and the build and got as close to it without plummeting. And then he glanced down and saw the brazen color of torn hymen and the orgasm shattered his resolve.

His body trembled while his lower regions gushed and spasmed. Emery's hands came up to his shoulders, luring him down until their chest met. They kissed a melangé of sweat and blood.


	17. Chapter 17

**[A/N]: We're coming down to the last few chapters of season one. I'll conclude this story as complete once it's finished and then start a sequel on season two(where we run into Miranda!) on its own instead of adding even more chapters to Carnivore. **

**So keep an eye out for the sequel! It'll be titled Obsidian. Also don't forget to review and let me know what you guys think so far! Thanks for sticking to it!**

**btw...mo' lemons ahead...**

* * *

><p>Afterwards, they dressed and Roman made the comment about visiting a Godfrey Chapel adjacent to Hemlock Acres. Peter was there, he further clarified. And because citizens of Hemlock Grove cared little about the truth of the matter more than they hungered for vengeance, Peter needed to be protected. His uncle assured them no one would think to check the chapel.<p>

During the trek to Roman's car, he stopped mid-way and turned towards Emery with an imploring eye.

"Do the police know about what happened to your sister?" he inquired.

Emery blinked, attempting to find the words to answer his question but suddenly her mind drew blank. Her tongue fell dumb and an icy hold came around her heart. She looked up at him, pleading for him to drop the question and move on. She didn't want to answer, she didn't want to think about it. She'd been so good about ignoring it and pushing the fact of the matter into the corners of her mind. Why did he find is incessant to ask about her sister? If she could rather not deal with it at this moment, she would be fine and that God forsaken ache wouldn't arise.

This the midst of her mental castigation, she shook her head.

This perturbed Roman. "What do you mean you don't think so?" he almost spat. "You didn't call the police?"

Sure enough, despite her effort, the pain emerged. The images came, filling her head that she tried so hard to repress and she thought back to stumbling into the dark trailer and being assaulted by the suffocating smell of wet metal. Her eyes went unfocused and she was suddenly aware that it felt better to just stare off into the distance without actually focusing on anything. If she could stay like this for hours while the world tore itself apart she would be fine. Fixated, she stared at the tree line and listened to the breeze that swept through the grove. Roman was talking in the background but the words never reached her ears. As she dozed off, she sifted through her index of pain because like any hunger or ache, it would only strengthen until satisfied. She found the only thing that brought a moment of silence in her clamoring head. The one thing she thought to be fear, but when it came to Roman, who fitted so well between her legs, the proverbial terror turned into a carnal desire at the flip of a switch. She could use him again to fed that ache and dull the emptiness that only festered inside.

_Yes_, she realized. _Roman._

Something jerked her shoulder, and she snapped out, facing the hard-green eyes of her solution.

"Hey," Roman said, sternly.

She was back, back in her body where her entire family was slaughtered, and where werewolves and nightmares coincided. She returned to having to actually look at things, and regard them, and believe that things were real and blood had to be spilled to keep the shadows from consuming her. The hunger was more awake than before as she looked to Roman and his tall, lean stature whose mouth devoured her breasts with laps and nips that chilled her skin.

This ache coiled in the pit of her fears and rolled with hisses and strikes, creating enough heat that she wished it could swallow her whole and turn her to ash. But the heat moved downward, retreating from her stomach and slipped between her legs. The pain of grief and loss suddenly diminished, taking its place a heat that throbbed and pooled between her thighs. Her eyes flickered to the red Jaguar and she took his hand and led him to it quickly. It felt the longer she took, the more savage it became. They crawled into the seats and Roman's pants were pushed down to his knees and Emery took hers off entirely. She crawled into his lap where Roman was ready and she pushed him inside, another effortless entry on behalf of her slick arousal. She rocked her hips and he pushed her jacket and shirt up to access her breasts. He worshiped them with firm hands and a hot tongue. He pawed at her body with enough force to leave a white bruises in the wake of his touch. Emery moaned under the increasing pressure, reminding him if there wasn't pain, there wasn't progress. And progress is what she needed. A constant progression away from the sorrow that wished to drown her entirely.

"Push it back." she whispered in his ear as she rolled her hips against him. He nipped her ear and pawed her body and produced a blade from a nearby pocket. She felt the slice and the hot trickle of blood as it escaped from her flesh and then she felt Roman's mouth about as hot and wet as their connected sex.

The car timed their rhythm, swaying as they moved. As the windows steamed up, Emery worked a second orgasm out of Roman. He seized under her, gripping her ass with one hand and a mound with the other.

And the sorrow was drowned in a sea of pleasure.

* * *

><p>The police had, in fact, been notified, though Emery wasn't aware that she had been the whistleblower. As for now, Roman and Emery mounted the steps of the Godfrey Chapel and hurried inside.<p>

Among the dust and architectural decay, a tub sat in the middle with booted feet propped upon the edge. Emery was following Roman as he strode across the chapel, heading straight for the out-of-place bathroom appliance.

The chapel was abandoned with pews overturned and mosaic window cracked and busted open. An inch of dust covered the churches entire surface and motes of it floated by in the catching light. It was dank as it was dark and contradicted the expected consecration.

Once they reached close, Emery found the feet belonged to a slumbering Peter wrapped in a wool blanket and propped against a large pillow. Roman slapped the nearest boot and jolted Peter awake. Upon realization it was just Roman and Emery, he relaxed and pulled his feet inward.

"I thought I ordered a redhead." He quipped sleepily.

"There was another one." Roman deadpanned.

Peter blinked. "Another what?"

"Another girl," Roman answered and Peter sat up like a board, suddenly alert.

"Who?" Peter asked, peering upward.

Roman faltered there for the words and Peter's eyes moved passed him and settled on Emery, who posed as more of a background prop, than a co-conspirator or any partner-in-crime.

"Letha's fine." Roman assured. "I checked on her earlier. But it was the wrong moon." he paused, "That's supposed to be impossible, right?" His voice rose, echoing off the dusty walls. Peter climbed out of the tub.

"Yeah, maybe." Peter tried. "Maybe not."

And just like that, the two disputed over who would go to a girl named Destiny with questions that needed answers. If Peter was, indeed, being hunted by the entire town with pitchforks and torches, even Emery knew it was suicide stepping out into broad daylight. They exchanged rationality and ownership of Letha's babysitting while Emery pulled the blanket out of the tub and wrapped it around her. Beneath the concealment, she slipped a hand under her shirt and dug her nails into her soft flesh. It stung and she closed her eyes, channeling the pain to dull the grief that began to creep onto her shoulders. The flesh grew hot and irritated and she dug deeper until the grief surrendered to the sting.

Roman had her by the elbow, yanking her to her feet. She dropped the blanket as he dragged her from the chapel to the car.

* * *

><p>Roman and Emery stood before a door that looked more of an apartment than business. She did notice the neon sign outside, suggesting psychic abilities within for a negotiable price.<p>

He knocked and shortly after, a brunette with long legs and a low cut shirt answered. She eyed Roman with reluctance and when her eyes landed on Emery, it felt like a shot to the soul. They broke eye contact and she stepped aside, allowing them entry. Beaded veils hung before doorways and as curtains for windows. The entire apartment was decorated in sanguine and gold embroidery. Beneath Emery's feet was a purple plush carpet draped across a dark hard wood floor. Candles decorated the surface of most furnishings and the air smelled like cinnamon and vodka.

The first woman jumped right to business. "What does Peter need?" she asked, propping her hands on her hips.

"There was another murder last night, the vargulf." Roman began solemnly. He glanced at Emery and muttered the name _Destiny _and gestured with a hand.

"I know, I know." the second woman said. Her eyes drifted to Emery and she smiled with a dimple. "I remember you."

Emery cared less about how they knew each other. She stared at the woman under a furrowed brow and palpable confusion. How did they know each other? But then it came to her. The trek through the woods during the time she first realized Peter wasn't a typical teenage miscreant. She shuddered and glanced away. Hemlock was too small for Emery's taste.

"Thank you," she said suddenly and this caught Emery by surprise but before she could ask what for, the woman answered for her. "For not telling on my boy. He's a good kid. He doesn't mean any harm." She ended in an assuring nod, her eyes becoming watery.

"Peter said you're some kind of expert," Roman brought the conversation back on track. "I mean, how is this happening?"

Destiny still had her hands resting on her hips and a sadness came over her. "You really have no idea what you are, do you?"

* * *

><p>The deal concluded with them leaving with a large paper bag crinkled from overuse. Destiny sent a message telling Peter she loved him and Lynda, she later learned, bid them a farewell and they hurried back to the chapel.<p>

Roman gave the supplies to Peter who began organizing five beeswax candles at the points of a drawn pentagram. He lit all of them and scattered change and few crumpled dollars along the concrete and then stood, walking thrice around the consecrated circle as he chanted too low for Emery to understand.

He stopped and held out a hand towards Roman, who regarded it with a slanted brow.

"What?" asked Roman.

"Take it." Peter expressed fervently. He jutted the other hand out towards Emery. She took it at the same time Roman did.

Peter continued to whisper words that made little sense to Emery's vault of vocabulary, so she chalked it down to a foreign tongue. After a moment, he grew silently and Roman's voice broke into the air.

"We...in business?"

Peter didn't respond and a grimace shadowed his expression as he glared into the ceiling. He released their hands and stepped towards a cat that had been prowling the space of their feet. He picked it up and returned to the circle.

"What are you doing?" Roman asked. "Peter, what are you doing with the cat?"

It meowed for a moment and then it realized its fate and growled a stretch of a noise that bristled Emery's arms.

"You might want to turn around for this." Peter said around the soft fur of the grey tabby. He stroked it, hoping to provide what little comfort he could.

Emery moved then. She skirted around the star where Peter sat and hurried across the dank chapel. She'd been in this predicament once before and she didn't want to witness it again. The rhythm of her feet increased until she was sprinting towards a shut door. Another set of footsteps followed as she darted into a dark room and Roman slammed it behind her. Neither wanted to witness Peter's action with the cat and even from the room they hid, its unsettling human whine still reached their ears and Emery acted quickly to snuff it out. She pulled at Roman, climbing onto a surface she could barely see in the dark. He came to her as her arms wrapped around his neck and they kissed headily so that the room was filled with the soft sound of brushed skin and the smacks of kisses.

Roman caught her hands as they tangled into his hair and they both stilled, listening.

"It's over." he said. He helped her down and they crept back into the main room as Peter produced a pocket knife. She heard the snap of the blade releasing from its catch.

Emery's stomach rolled and she released Roman's hand and stepped outside.

A black overcast awaited her as she rushed into the cold air, a vague difference between the innards of the chapel and the outside. It churned and rolled like smoke and the door opened from behind her. It was Roman again. He reached into his blazer pocket and retrieved a mint container. Inside were several pills, Xanax he said as he consumed one and handed another to Emery. She took the tiny pill and placed it into her mouth. The harsh flavor sat on her tongue and she moved the pill to the back of her mouth in attempt to swallow it whole. With difficulty, she tossed it back.

"What's going to happen?" she asked, hoping Roman had a viable answer.

But the front door of the chapel was thrown open and out staggered Peter with blood soaked hands that dripped as he stumbled down the stairs. Roman called out to him, but Peter made no indication that he heard. He continued to tromp across the graveyard until he reached the perimeter and there he fell to his knees.

* * *

><p>The price for breaking the rules was Peter's human face while across Hemlock the news of Riley's untimely death spread contagiously. Emery had no way of being contacted and she was grateful to have had lost her cell during her blackout. No one expected her to be in the presence of the Godfrey's considering she was neither gypsy nor opulent. Therefore she must be running amok throughout the town, conceivably looking for her next victim, or so they perceived.<p>

Her fingerprints were all over the body and entrance to the trailer, officials stated. They found Riley Cole dressed in her last Army Combat Uniform, even her boots were laced on. Forensics were quick to dub the donning post mortem. But where was Emery? was the headlines of Hemlock Grove.

Currently she sat in the passenger's seat of Roman's convertible. He went inside to gather what Peter had requested, a large amount of bacon grease. Which was peculiar to Emery.

He hadn't been gone for long, but it felt like days as she sat in silence, watching the crows disappear into the treeline as the storm rolled in. The tops listed to the west and an odd sound reached her ears suddenly.

She listened to the short, clipped din and the volume of it rose until it rattled in her chest and ricocheted throughout her head until all she could hear were the hacking chaos of teeth gnawing against snapping bones and palls of flesh being savagely torn and consumed. A voice resonated out and it was the sound of Riley calling her name over and over.

Her hands flew up to cover her ears but the noise pushed passed the stiff fingers. She pulled her knees into her chest and hunkered down until she fitted into a tight ball and tried now to surrender to her dismay. The harder she pressed against her ears the louder the slaughter and calamity ensued until it deafened her senses and produced a high pitched ring. She lost the ability to breathe.

The door to the convertible flew open and arms reached in and took her firmly by the shoulders. The screaming suddenly stopped an she could breathe again. As her lungs pulled greedily and her tongue felt stiff and dry, she realized she had been the one screaming. Roman was there, calling her back and she returned as her mind fled and her heart calmed. Her body uncurled and she fell numb again.


	18. Chapter 18

_"Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked."_

_-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr._

* * *

><p>Emery and Roman returned to the chapel with a black attaché in tow. They found Peter waiting for them patiently across the room. A thin fume of smoke billowed from his lips and he flicked the cherry from the tip of his cigarette as they approached.<p>

"Is that the bacon grease?" Peter inquired, eyeing the tote Emery carried. He pinched the butt of the cigarette between his lips as she handed it over. Roman sat the black case down and Peter immediately dug into the tote, discovering a large mason jar. He pulled it out and looked it over.

"Oh, good," he said, rotating the jar to eye the brown coagulation. "You did good." He loosened the lid , took a whiff and closed it again before gesturing towards the black case. "What's that?" The cigarette bounced on the syllables as he spoke.

"A weapon," Roman began as he released the latch. He lifted the lid and revealed a double-bladed axe. "From my mother. We have her blessings for what it's worth."

Peter's shoulders bounced as he laughed. Imaging the priggish, uppity Olivia Godfrey humping the large case down a spiraling staircase to give to her equally uppity and priggish son for the inevitable slaying of a _vargulf _had his stomach tight. There was only one weapon to be used in this fight, and that was Peter.

They watched Roman reach in and take it by the hilt. He spun it in his hands and eyed the engraving and the blemishes of age. "You have your spells, she has hers." he stated matter-of-factly.

"Just try not to poke your eye out with it." Peter snickered once more.

Roman placed it back in its case and locked it. He stood, regarding Peter solemnly, initiating his next choice of words were strictly business. As he rose, his _friend_ Emery sank. For the few times she'd been brought up among the conversation, Roman made no indication to explain their sudden relationship, which was fine with Peter. He cared little about what the _upir _did and with what and whom. She plopped down onto the cold and dusty concrete and drew her legs in. It was evident she was fairly tired.

"So," Roman began. "How are you going to find it?"

Peter's smile faded and he glanced back towards the sun that glared into the cathedral with such surety and recognition that it caused Emery and Roman to look as well. "It'll find me." he told them. "I asked how to do what it did- to turn on the wrong moon. I'm closer to it now, I can feel it." He swallowed and he shifted on his rump, suddenly uncomfortable. "I can feel it feel me."

Peter glanced at Emery who wore the countenance of pensivity. Though she was looking towards him, she didn't see him and her eyes were wide and vacant. He wondered what it would be like to be a girl for a day. Because how else would he understand what was happening in her head? She appeared fine to him, or perhaps the issues were there, buried beneath layers of denial? He didn't know much about her, except for her uncanny luck, or lack thereof. But there she stood, motionless and silent, absorbing the light and sounds and basking beneath the motes of dust floating aloft as would any individual. Her furrowed brow and sagging shoulders spoke her exhaustion, mentally more than physically. She would break soon, they always did. Peter hoped he wasn't around.

At this moment, Roman's phone began to ring and its shrilled snapped her free. She blinked and tear escaped down her cheek in which she wiped away quickly before anyone but Peter to notice. For a brief second, Peter considered asking if everything was alright, but decided against it. No sense in asking such a rhetorical question when the negation was so profoundly obvious. Her sister was slain and the law enforcements were currently scouring the countryside for both of them. Regardless of their innocents, Hemlock Grove would see to their end.

Peter looked away from Emery in time to see Roman hang up the phone.

"It's Letha," he said. "She needs me to come by. It's something important."

* * *

><p>Emery had stayed but as soon as Peter and Roman left the chapel, the heavy silence and sense of isolation flooded the dusty spaces and left her regretting this decision immensely. Now that she was alone, she realized it was probably the last thing she wanted, and if that were the case, what was it she actually <em>did?<em>

A breeze picked up outside and sent the aging beams around her into a disembodied groan. She lied back, stretching across the hard pew she sat upon and stared into the arched ceiling. Her eyes roamed the drafty interior, counting the cobwebs and holding her breath when she imagined a speck of dust drifting too closely to her mouth. Another ache began to twist in her belly and she realized quickly she needed to vomit. She pressed her lips together and swallowed thickly then took several slow breaths through her nose. But the feeling remained, so she sat up and wrapped her arms around her midsection in attempt to placate the discomfort.

Had she eaten anything today? she thought. If she had, she didn't remember.

Her mouth began to water, the proverbial signs of a body readying for expulsion, whether it had the means to pass or not.

Emery leaned forward and spat, ridding the excessive slobber and breathing heavily through her nose. She pressed a hand against her mouth and glanced around the chapel for a bin. But there was nothing, and she couldn't suppress it any longer. Her shoulders lurched forward and her lungs locked, she slipped from the pew and landed on her hands and knees as the bile chafed her throat and blew passed her lips.

Another wave was close by and she managed to suck in a large breathe before it came. More bile ensued, splashing against the dust-caked floors with a sickly yellow substance and spit. Sweat beaded on her arms and forehead as she retched until her body tremble from exertion. It was getting impossible to breathe and now her stomach was empty of contents, but still left her on hands and knees dry heaving until she felt she could taste blood.

When the onslaught finally passed, Emery fell back onto her ass, relieved and heaving for air. It was hot now and her hairline was soaked and her skin had become pallor in color. She spat the foul taste within her mouth and climbed back onto the pew she'd fallen from. Was it time? she thought. Could she no longer shrug off the fact that she was alone in this world? Was it time to grieve? The ache had returned and Roman was no where near his call of duty. But that could only last for so long before she stared developing feelings for him, and she had no intentions for that. It wasn't like she was in love. He was her first but there was nothing romantic about it. She wanted to hurt and so he hurt her, stretching her, pumping within her, nicking her skin with blades and teeth. Who was she kidding? She liked it. She liked how her body responded to the pleasure and the pain he delivered.

Something shifted and Emery felt as if someone was sitting next to her. She shot a startled look and then sighed with relief; it was just Riley. The scent of a ripe corpse succeeded the mildew of the chapel and sudden structure vanished, leaving Emery and Riley surrounded by shadows, perched upon a single pew.

"Are you ready?" Her sister asked. Her entrails hung from her stomach and dried blood mottled her lips. Despite this evident fallacy, neither sister appeared to mind. Emery knew what she was seeing was a delusion but the clarity of it never quite reached her mind.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and said, "I'm not sure."

From the end of the pew, Riley scooted until she was closer. A cold hand reached over and took Emery's. Their fingers laced and with Emery's freehand, she began tracing the carvings of ink that adorned her sister's pallid wrist. It was tortuous to see her again, her deceased sister, but welcoming all the same.

"Well you need to be, Emery." Riley suggested. "And soon. You don't have much time." Her right hand rested against her lap and there Emery realized she was missing fingers. Bloody stumps were in place of her absent digits.

Emery looked back down to the hand she held and, with her fingertip, followed the pointed canines of a skull with a rose blooming from its mouth. "I don't know what you want me to be ready for," she admitted.

Riley chuckled, a harsh discord on decaying vocals. "You've always been a smart girl, Emery. You'll figure it out." Two segmented legs and a pair of palps jutted out from her right nostril. They elongated until a spider crawled from the innards of Riley's nose. It fell onto her lap and disappeared into her stained trousers.

Emery drew her lips to the side and contemplated. It was nice to have a second chance to speak to Riley. She'd spent too many days and hours chasing the nightmares around Hemlock that she forgot about the one at home. The one that needed her just as much as she needed it. How many phone calls had she ignored? How many texts from Riley did she skim over and forget to reply? Too many.

Her hand squeezed Riley's as her eyes welled with tears.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, watching the droplets fall into her sister's ashen skin. "I'm sorry I abandoned you when you needed me."

Riley cooed a soothing noise. "Oh no, Emery." she said, running the cold pad of her thumb against Emery's skin. "You did what you had to do."

Emery's shoulders shook as she wept and a drop of snot quivered under her nose. Her face was fisted in an ugly cringe and flushed hot. She wasn't a pretty crier. Besides, who did she have to impress? Her dead and decaying sister? Certainly not.

"I've seen things, Riley. I've felt them." Emery grimaced. "I can't explain it but I think I'm sick. Something's wrong with me, I can feel it taking over."

Riley smiled, her once white teeth now a smear of red. "Oh, my poor baby sister. You are sick." she nonchalantly deadpanned, "But it's that sickness that'll get your through this."

Her sister leaned forward and the smell of carrion became more suffocating than before and it assaulted her senses. Emery felt her stomach twist for another round of sickness, but she couldn't turn away, not when Riley was pressing a small kiss to her temple.

The crunching sound of tires against gravel reached Emery and Riley, and they both turned in their seats towards its provenance. When Riley looked back, she had a crimson grin, harsh against her pale face.

"You can do it." she squeezed Emery's hand and gave it a comforting shake. She nodded eagerly, her grin spreading farther and becoming more unnatural until Emery feared it would split her head in two. The chapel doors threw open, filling the musty shadows with wintry light. Emery twisted around in time for the inky veil to diminish. She was back in the Godfrey Chapel and she looked to her side to find her sister gone. She was alone again.

When she glanced back, she saw Letha first and behind her, a shock of white hair around a face she didn't immediately recognize.


	19. Chapter 19

The air shifted, becoming heavy and stifling, almost suffocating Emery as she stood. She thought she would have been relieved to see Roman after her spell, but she found she couldn't look away from the little girl with the moon-pale locks. It didn't feel to be the first time Emery had seen the girl, but her mind drew blank as she attempted to recall how. A plastic bag rustled in the background as the girl moved with a palpable excitement, despite the evidently stark difference of consensus'. Roman lit a cigarette, motioning for Emery as soon as his hand became free, but she was rooted.

The girl moved, seating herself upon the pew Emery had just deserted. Bruises hinted beneath her beady eyes and her lips were chapped and pallor. Still, Emery could not look away. Her fixation was weighted, anchored in place and had no intentions of moving like a deer in headlights. In the back of her mind, she could hear Riley's voice, too hushed and strung together to understand.

"Are you sure we're safe here?" the little girl asked, glancing warily about the chapel. Her eyes skimmed the dusty windows and the barren scaffolds erected near the walls.

"Hey," Peter assuaded as he stepped forward, grasping her tiny shoulder firmly. "Nothing's going to hurt you here. I promise. I won't let it."

This seemed convincing enough for she smiled sheepishly and nodded. His attention returned to the plastic bag, producing a coiled electrical extension cord from inside. He began tearing the bind that held it together.

Letha's voice issued near the front towards Roman.

"Get them out of here." Peter told Roman. Emery moved as Roman approached Letha. He placed an arm upon her, but she was immobile. She could only gawk which brought a questionability for Emery. She halted and looked back to the white haired girl with clarity.

_You're not going to get away with it!_ The tiny voice whispered upon the vocals of her deceased sister. Emery remembered now, but hadn't a name for the face. That was a time when she feared Roman, who she didn't know, suspected her of the killings. Having nearly run her over as she walked towards Kilderry park just hours before Bluebell's murder, it appeared rightly so. What was she doing here? And why was Peter now telling her to get onto her knees? Letha's hand flew up, catching the gasp with a tightly. Emery blinked, suddenly overwhelmed with confusion.

"Roman?" Emery felt herself whisper. "Roman." she said again with more conviction.

She could hear his footsteps as he neared her, the grip of his hands met her arm and he pulled, but she, like Letha, had no intentions of breaking free. She was glued, the pieces of it all falling together. Brooke Bluebell. Lisa Willoughby. Her sister.

_Her sister._

One of two things were about to happen. The girl was going to be used as bait, which correlated nicely to Letha's ghastly expression..Or she was...

"Who is she?" Emery asked, digging her nails into Roman's jacket as he attempted to pull her away.

"Let's go. You don't need to be here." Roman said.

"Who is she!" Emery shouted, yanking him towards her.

Roman stumbled as the girl eased to her knees. She was eyeing Peter with heavy lids, a euphoric mousiness gracing her expression.

"_It's _Christina Wendell." he said.

* * *

><p>"I kissed you once," Christina's voice admitted breathlessly, the euphoria channeling a giddiness. The admission stopped Peter short. "It was right when you moved here." she continued with an airy giggle. "It was my first. I never told anyone that, not even the twins." she sighed, staring down into her tiny lap. The mood shifted, becoming solemn and pensive. "They lost their virginity last summer. It's all they ever talked about. I wanted the experience for myself, you know? It's what writers do."<p>

The world could have been ending around Emery but there was no way of telling. She couldn't pull her eyes away from Christina, the girl who had blamed Emery for nearly every murder. She remembered and it filled her head with the cacophony of death. It was a clamorous explosion of screams and hacking sounds, of bared teeth and snapping bones as her mind replayed every gruesome strife in Hemlock Grove. It brought her back to the front yard of her home. It reminded her of the fear she felt every time, the apprehension that stiffened her legs and anchored her feet to the dirt. And with that fear it held her in place as the windows spattered with blood and screams seeped beneath the doorframe. She didn't know her knees had buckled and that she had fallen to the floor. But Roman was there to catch her.

Emery was lifted up, planting her feet steadily against the floor. She was heaving for air. Her head felt sluggish and the room took a sway, tilting unnaturally from its axis. Christina was still talking and the chorus of horrors still looped within her head. She blinked, attempting to correct the pitch of her vision.

Peter began to talk. Then there was the sound of Roman and Letha's, and Riley's and Christina's. And the vibrations of every person she had ever met. Their words flittered and swooped, wavering back and forth between the screams of Brooke Bluebell, Lisa Willoughby, and…

And…

And then there was nothing but the constricting gasps as Emery found her hands wrapped around Christina's neck.


	20. Chapter 20

_As the moon ascends_  
><em>The wolves come out to see the end<em>  
><em>They hide from view and wait<em>  
><em>To watch the ghost inside you come awake<em>  
><em>And when the shots go off, you hear them call<em>  
><em>My heart is racing just to see it all<em>  
><em>To watch you crawl out of your changing shape<em>  
><em>Take all your breath and watch it come awake<em>

* * *

><p>Roman moved as soon as Emery wrenched from his grasp, but he had no idea she intended to accost the girl until they both fell to the concrete and Emery was straddling her. Her fingers were already laced around Christina's neck, choking her under locked elbows.<p>

He yanked her off and Christina rolled onto her side, coughing and heaving to breathe. She sat up as Roman contained Emery, who still thrashed and kicked in his arms. She was shouting obscenities right in his ear, something she rarely did was lose her cool. In fact, Roman didn't believe he had ever seen this part of her. But then again, despite their give-take relationship, he didn't know much about Emery. He did know a few things, that she smelled good and tasted sweet, that her body provided the means for him no matter time or day and anyone knew just as well as he did, Roman loved to fuck.

"She did it!" Emery screamed with a trembling exclaim to the audience, then she spoke directly to Christina. "You killed my sister!"

Christina tucked her legs beneath her and sat upon her heels. With small pale hands, she reached up and brushed away the strands of white hair that clung at the corner of her lips. So young and yet, so collected. She checked the condition of her neck, red from Emery's aggression, by gently caressing it with her hands. When everything checked out, she settled a heavy gaze onto Emery.

"Can you control it?" Peter asked, diverting Christina's attention.

The once malicious expression fell and she returned to the docile trance when she looked upon Peter. She blinked sleepily.

"Last night was it just something that happened or did you make it happen?" he tried again.

Again, no answer.

"Did you make yourself turn, or did you hear it? Did you hear you other name?" pressed Peter.

Her head began to lull to the side as her eyes eased closed and everyone around her, including Roman, assumed she had actually fallen asleep. Peter took the cord and gave it a firm yank, snapping her out of her daze and onto the floor with her stomach.

Letha yelped, reminding Roman that she and Emery were still at stake. He took Emery by the hand and led her to his mewling cousin. Roman knew Letha was still coming to terms with everything that was transpiring. Even he had trouble understanding it all. She was just a girl, just a fucking girl. And all those slayings and blood, and mess of bodies that kept adding to the casualty scale with or without a moon was too much even for _him_.

"If you don't answer me," Peter began, " I will let Emery choke the life out of you right here."

Christina picked herself up and sat on her knees again.

"I decided to," she finally admitted, "I wanted to."

"Okay," Peter sighed, agreeable with their progress. They were finally getting somewhere. "Okay."

He then crouched until they could see eye to eye. "Listen to me carefully. If you decide to turn tonight, you're going to die."

Christina took on a different shade of innocence, under towed with an evident yearning. "Are you going to kill me, Peter?"

"Yes." he said.

"Do you hate me?" she squeaked.

"No. I don't hate you." he said.

She sighed, lifting a smile that stretched across her face.

Peter shifted on his feet, glancing between Emery and Letha, ultimately Letha because it was her Christina had come to. If Emery hadn't been here, she would have been safe from the _vargulf's_ next attack, unfortunately she was here, and that put everyone within its crosshairs. But tonight wasn't for Emery, Peter, or even Roman, it was for Letha and he wanted to know why.

"Why her?" Peter asked. "Why did you go to her?"

Christina turned her head to Letha who held onto the shoulders of Roman who had Emery in his arms. Roman had seen her the day before when he visited Hemlock Acres for blankets and pillows. She had seen him and the doctor slipping food and blankets into the chapel that evening and she knew Peter was there, like she knew the exact location of her own heart or brain. She didn't need to see it, she could _feel_ it, she could feel _him_.

"Because when I saw you in there with your ugly little thing in that whore I wanted more than anything to feel her fear on my tongue and her bones crunch between my teeth and her blood run down the fur of my neck. And you," she shot a look at Emery. "The moment I met your sister I knew she was a delicacy. The amount of hate and fear that coursed her veins, the horrors she had seen, the blood she had spilled. She was a ripe peach, the juiciest yet," Christina moaned. "I've never tasted blood so rich and bones so sweet."

She gazed up at Peter, on tenterhooks, she licked her lips. "We can eat her together," she said. "I always left you a bigger piece."

"I'm going to fucking kill you." Emery shreiked from across the chapel, struggling within Roman's embrace.

The gypsy boy with the scruff paled at Christina's words and for a moment, faltered to stand. He took a knee as Christina smiled wistfully.

"It's okay." she said. "You can kill me as long as you don't hate me. You should do it now, while you still have me like you want me. It's already happening, you haven't got a lot of time. I can't turn it around any more than you can turn around night and day. Do what you have to while it's still day. You made me. I'm yours."

She put her hands down and rose onto all fours. She crawled forward until she was inches away from Peter's face.

"You're my master, you can do anything you want to me." she whispered.

Peter watched as the last modicums of humanity seeped from her young eyes, replacing their pale pools into a black endless pit.

"Oh God," he breathed. "Please forgive me."

Christina smiled one last time. "I've never heard my name." she said, but the voice that came wasn't Christina's, but of an entity that was born by the deepest belly of hell. Its chords were hollow and unprecedented. It was untamed, this sound. Rabid and fanatical.

And then she turned.

* * *

><p>lyrics are by Crosses - Bitches Brew<p> 


	21. Chapter 21

Emery forgot about Christina and all she represented the moment the roar of the white wolf emerged. A hand came up and caught the sound that escaped her mouth, a scream or gag, Emery couldn't remember as the animal burst forth with such savage aggression in such a tiny containment. It filled the chapel with the dimensions of a monster, scrounged from the pit of any man's nightmares. Heaps of flesh and tissues piled the floor, steaming under light that flooded through the windows.

Everything that had ever happened to Emery suddenly no longer held any importance. The life she lived in the sweltering Arizona desert. Her parents, both suffering under an insatiable addiction which inevitably led to their deaths. The foster homes she drifted in and out of. The system that cared little about where they went, what happened to them, and if they made it out alive. Not even Riley's death weighed upon her shoulders at this time. All that matter was getting out alive, escaping from the snapping jaws of the _vargulf _in front of her now, shaking what little of Christina was left with splatters of blood and perforated intestines.

It was starved and rabid, with ribs seen through the thick white fur with every arduous breath; a painful reminder that such a beast could share the same stagnant air they all did. The audience drew quiet as the wolf leaned down and plucked a severed foot from the floor. It planted a meaty paw against the ankle and ripped away the skin, consuming it in a single swallow.

Rooted to the floor, Emery sifted through her thoughts for any sublunary reason why such a fiend could exist, but there was no fathomable explanation, nothing that could convince her this was real. It was her second time seeing such transformation and she found it hadn't gotten any easier to stomach and even less to understand. One thing was for certain: she hated it. She hated the color of its coat, the sick-yellow of its eyes, the way its lips curled back and exposed all rows of sharp canines under bruised gums. She hated what it represented within Hemlock Grove. It radiated hate and famine, drunk from the suffocating fear that engorged the spaces of the room. Unable to pick a target, its feral eyes skirted around the chapel, ultimately settling upon Peter because of sheer proximity. Whatever could be reached first, that's what it desired the most.

A shadow stepped to Emery's right and she expected to see Roman ushering her towards the exit, but instead, she saw Riley. She was still bleeding, still torn from the middle, smiling as if oblivious to the nightmare on all fours. Emery didn't know what she expected to see when she gazed upon Riley. Perhaps she went to an imaginary hospital, an illusion just as she, and got stitched up? Not likely, this was the last image she had of Riley and it would forever haunt her memory until the day she died.

"Are you ready?" her sister said, draping an arm about Emery's shoulder in a nonchalant gesture. She gave the _vargulf _a casual glance and looked back to Emery. "It's not going to kill itself." she grinned, allowing blood to slip over her pale lips. Wet metal and death assaulted her senses as if Riley were really there, standing next to her, surrounded by Roman, Peter, Letha and the beast they had been hunting. But no one saw her but Emery.

Then Letha was screaming, the sound resonated out, bouncing off the walls, and prompting everyone in the room to move. Emery's eyes found the girl clutching her swollen belly and screaming until her exclaim trembled. Roman was there, releasing the latch to the attache case and retrieving a heavy axe from inside. Peter had knelt down and picked something from the floor; a jar. The wolf made an attempted pounce for him, but the slack from the cord diminished midair, snapping taut. With a clipped yelp, it was yanked back and onto its side. It was quick to scramble back to its feet and try again. Each attempt drew the cord tighter about its neck, strangling it until it heaved and frothed at the mouth.

Slobber splashed onto Peter's cheek and he made sure to wipe it away before he loosened the jar and dipped a hand inside. Emery was glancing between Riley and the wolf, unsure which was real and more dangerous. This was not what she had in mind. Meanwhile, the wolf continued to strain against the cord, practically choking itself amidst its frenzy. Its roars and growls perpetuated within the Godfrey Chapel. Peter brought a hand to his face and began smearing the grease against his cheeks.

The wolf leaped again, continued to snarl and snap towards Peter. It finally backed off, wrenching around and taking the thick orange cord between its teeth. In a single chomp, it snapped and now dangled, severed and loose, about its neck.

Slowly, it regarded Peter again, keen on the sudden disadvantage. Peter, who stood so calmly, smeared in bacon grease, gave a fleeting glance towards Letha, Roman and Emery before stepping forward in the area of effectivity. Roman stood as Letha darted forward, like Emery, he seized her and she thrashed, screaming and crying as Peter knelt before what monster was once Christina Wendell.

The _vargulf_ leaped and the chapel detonated into the anguished cries of Peter Rumancek. Letha, with lungs of steel, continued to wail over the onslaught until he staggered out, hands clutching his skinned maw as blood seeped passed his fingers and pooled onto his shirt. He tripped over his feet and the harsh red grew dark until black ink began to gush forth, slopping onto the church. He sunk to his knees with a defeated flop and his entire body began to quake. His arms slacked and he fell to the dusty floor, revealing the scarlet remnants of a decorticated skull and its unhinged jaw.

Emery couldn't look away any more than a moth could divert an open flame. The black goo continued to fall passed his hands and onto the concrete at the chorus of Letha's wailing sounds.

"Get out of here!" Roman's voice came and so did his hands, gripping Emery's shoulder and dragging her back. Letha was there, taking her hand and together they rushed for an exit. But as they neared, able to see the daylight shine through the thin crack between the doors, they also noticed the heavy weighted chains hanging about the handles, a padlock centered at the connections of two separated links.

Letha bolted back to Roman who held the axe perpendicular to his frame. The _vargulf_ had its fun with Peter who lied upon the chapel floor, faceless, lifeless, defeated, and was now accosting Roman. Emery pressed her back to the door, confused on what actually was supposed to happen. What did he think smearing bacon grease across his face would do? He was dead, useless now. How could he, the only one who understood the chaos that was reigning down on them, die right when things turned from bad to worse? Why didn't he just kill her when she was Christina? What was he waiting for! What further proof did he need? She admitted to it, warned him even of her change which was near and irreversible!

But it had come for Letha and by the stance Roman displayed, axe held in hand, this was not to happen.

Roman Godfrey, Emery mused.

A boy who showed her a tenderness she'd never experienced, despite her requests for something just as savage and tainted as she. He gripped her, and showered her with kisses, filled her up until she spilled over with such intimacy she thought it would kill her. How she wished it would have, too. To finally be freed of the strife all her years were. The kicks and screams, the restless nights, and sleep deprived days. Being strewn into the public eye and explaining that _It's not what it looks like_. But it was in every aspect and there was no denying that. If they made it out, if the _vargulf _were slain, the Godfrey's and Rumancek's would move forward. Peter was a gypsy, he was a survivor. And Roman, there was nothing his money could not fix. As for Emery, she was still broken, before and after it all. And they would come for her as if she had anywhere else to go but down.

The white wolf came from the pews, regarding Roman as Letha hid behind him, crying and wailing continuously. It was too much for her, for them. He rotated the axe within his grip and urged the wolf to attack. It snapped its vise-like joules with enough force to ricochet the admission from off the walls. It began to pace, head low, eyes steady on Roman who just wanted to protect Letha, because if anything happened to him, at least it didn't happen to her.

It pounced and Roman brought the axe up, catching its maw with the hilt of the axe. The weight toppled him onto his back and with a whip of the _vargulf's _head, the weapon was wrenched from his grasp and slung from reach.

* * *

><p>This was it, Roman realized. His kill. His time. It was over. He knew no weapon could take a beast like this down, but fuck it, he would try. As long as it didn't get to Letha, that stupid fucking bitch. If she hadn't let Christina in, if she hadn't tagged along, if she hadn't been here with the little girl who was no longer a little girl, but a raging animal far more sinister than anyone had imagined, then this death would be in vain.<p>

Before him, inches from his countenance, it snarled with unwavering eyes, aloof to Emery and Letha, but that was enough. The longer it took to finish him off, the more time was bided and they could escape.

Then there was a yelp and the glint of metal catching in the light. Roman felt the weight of the _vargulf _diminish and then hands everywhere, pulling and dragging him back. Like a kick to the rear, Roman scrambled to his feet, faltering into the arms of Emery as she discarded the axe and pulled him up the steps towards Letha.

With their backs turn, racing to create breadth from the beast, a series of growls and their guttural thunder filled the innards of the chapel with enough vociferation to rattle his chest.

In unison, Roman, Letha, and Emery turned towards the issue. Only to find not one, but two wolves, polar in color. The black wolf had a hold of the _vargulf_ by the throat, squeezing an iron hold between its jaws while the white wolf thrashed and flailed, seeking a weak point to free itself. But the dark wolf held tight, unyielding as it rooted to the floor and began to thrash its own head left and right.

The _vargulf_ lost its footing, and its paws began to drag ineptly across the concrete and it attempted to regain its balance, but it was useless. There was a moment of separation between the two animals as the white wolf was flung from the black wolf, colliding into a pile of pews where it quickly righted itself. But the black wolf was not far, readying a second attack when the _vargulf_ lunged unexpectedly from the debris.

The white body slammed into Peter's wolf, knocking it onto its side where it dug its claws into a soft belly and began to rip away patches of fur and flesh.

For the second time that day, the three listened to the sounds of Peter's cry as blood spattered the concrete floor and snarls and snaps accompanied the steady streams of cries and yelps.

Something had to be done but before Roman could even begin to fathom what, Letha began to pray. He shot her a glare, insulted that amidst the pit of their peril, she was pausing for prayer.

Roman began to pray, too.

And there was a thunderous beat beneath his feet and he opened his eyes and braced for something holy and divine to have answered their prayers, but then the Godfrey Chapel doors burst open, flooding them with a blinding pale blue light and the ground shook with such intensity there was only one person who could conjure such a commotion.

And among the chapel air filled with the chorus of madness, Emery's scream broke out into the name of Shelley.

* * *

><p>This was Emery's catharsis. This is what Riley had intended for her all along.<p>

No, it certainly wasn't going to kill itself. It would finish off Roman like it did with Peter and then it would move to Emery, and lastly, Letha; the object of its desire.

But the moment she felt the assuaging breeze that could only be derived in the presence of Shelley, Emery knew if she didn't do something, everyone she loved would be killed.

And she loved Shelley more than she loved herself, and under this sudden clarity, she loved Roman and Letha, too.

So when Shelley barreled across the chapel for the vargulf who snapped the neck of Peter Rumancek, plucking the beast from its fours, Emery acted.

She grabbed the double-bladed axe from the floor and raced towards Shelley and swung.

She swung and she swung until the fur turned to flesh and the face of the vargulf lost its malice and became the innocence of Christina Wendell. And even then, she kept swinging until she was back in her living room, covered in blood, heaving breathlessly among pieces of her sister with the axe in hand.

Emery opened her eyes and Christina Wendell lied before her, naked with her chest and abdomen an open wound of broken bone and crimson tissue. The axe was dropped, clanking to the floor under its hefty weight and Shelley was there, pulling Emery from the bloody chrysalis.

Someone was chanting. The words were spilling from a pair of lips, spotted in blood:

"I couldn't let you. I couldn't let you. I couldn't let you."

And then a shot rang out, shattering the muted chapel in a startling detonation and Shelley yanked Emery into a hug, taking the entire slug to her back. Emery could feel the vibration of the blow within her chest and a second shot came, slamming into Shelley's shoulders and a beastial cry sprang from the girl's lips. She shoved Emery behind an upended pew, faltering to stand. She turned away and stormed out of the chapel with Roman in her wake.

Emery sat up and glanced across the chapel towards Letha. Roman's shouts could still be heard even under the rainfall and from inside. There was footfalls and the cocking barrel of a shotgun. She knew deep down it was pointing at her, but she could only watch Letha, who looked passed her with a certain hopelessness.

Unlike Emery, who had been hopeful for majority of her life even went dealt with plight after plight, after plight. So she mirrored that same hopelessness as Riley appeared. Her sister lowered herself to the concrete, stitched up and renewed as Emery's hands were guided behind her back and the cold metallic of cuffs bit into her skin. A grip encased her elbow and she was lifted to her feet but her eyes trained onto her sister, Riley, who smiled meekly and offered a small wave as Emery was carted off in the back of a Sheriff Sworn's patrol car.


	22. Epilogue

Someone was screaming. It was an ear-piercing admission that seeped through the walls and the windows, snuffing out the chorus of birds that flittered and swooped limb to limb outside.

It never stopped. The provenance of the sound was a girl by the name of Daisy Wicker.

Daisy loved to scream. She loved to see the white-capped nurses spring into action just as she opened her mouth and bellowed a great note. They always drug her away, assigning her a room she could scream in all day without bothering the others.

But she always bothered Emery.

Emery hated Daisy as much as Daisy hated everything else. At night, when Emery was fast asleep, Daisy would scream and all residents of the hall would wake and bang against the walls and holler for her to shut up. But she never did. Daisy didn't want to stop. She wanted to scream until her voice broke and blood dripped from her lips.

For now, until she was apprehended, Emery would wait. She was perched on the edge of her bed, staring out of the window into the winter light. The Cardinals were playing outside. Bright, brazenly red feathers stark against the snowy courtyard. They churred and sang, kicking up flecks of snow with their wings.

The screaming stopped and was replaced with the sound of laughter. It was a deep throaty sound, increasing in volume and then pitch. Emery lifted her legs up and tucked them beneath her. She flopped against her made bed and pressed her hands tightly against her ears. Eventually the laughter developed into the proverbial screaming, prompting another soul further down to the hall to begin shouting:

"_SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP"_

The pounding of footfalls neared and retreated. Back and forth, they came and went, until Emery had enough. She sat up, regarding her quiet sister at her bed's end.

"I'll make her shut up if I have to," Emery growled. Her socks shuffled along the tile as she strode for the door.

"And how are you going to do that?" Riley inquired, not looking away from the window.

Emery shrugged, "Like I always do."

Riley grinned. "No, like _I_ always do."

And with that she disappeared and Emery felt the darkness consume her once again. She went to a place that was quiet and warm, with sand beneath her feet and mountains off in the distance. It was a familiar place but her memory never could quite recall her whereabouts. She didn't mind the mystery, every time she visited something new was discovered. Yesterday, when a girl named Toni cuffed Emery on the side of the head during dinner, Emery went to the place and found a starfish. This morning, she found a smooth pebble all around and the color of chalk. Once she had a bird land on her hand. Emery wished she could stay here forever, but the problem was, she couldn't. She had to come back or else everything would go to _shit_.

That's at least what Riley said and both of them didn't want things to go to _shit._

Wiggling her toes, Emery lifted her face into the warmth of the sun. There was the tumbling of waves not far off and the screeching of seagulls gliding smoothly through the coming wind. She opened her eyes and glanced down, searching for a new discovery. She had to act quickly before Riley was done and sometimes it was seconds and other times it took hours.

Sinking down, the welcoming sand kissed her knees and shins. Her toes were still buried as she began sifting through the waves of sand around her. It was here, she knew it. Something told her.

As she scooped the sand apart, a glint of light caught her eye. Eagerly, she dug faster and deeper until the refraction led to a chain.

Emery plucked it up, only to find more of it was still buried beneath the sand. She sat back and pulled and pulled, but the chain continued until finally there was resistance. Something was tethered at its end, stuck under the weight of sand. She dug deeper, revealing a sparkling red color.

Emery freed it from the sand, producing a white and red cell phone connected to the long silver chain. She dusted the small flecks of sand and examined the device.

There was a catch at the corner, she picked at it with her fingernail and freed a pen with no ink or ballpoint. She held the stylus in her hand as the sky began to darken. A thunderous growl rolled beyond her scope of sight, behind the clouds foretelling her first rain upon her favorite beach.

How peculiar, she thought as she continued to look the phone over. Emery didn't remember the last time she had a cell phone, or if she ever did. She didn't remember a lot of things. The drugs, the therapy, the incessant screaming. It all played a part for Emery, distracting her from where she came from, who she was, and what she was even doing here. But as long as she got to visit a beach, she didn't mind.

The first drops of rain fell, mottling the surface of the phone. Her thumb found a button and she pressed it. The screen illuminated and there was a picture of a boy and girl. The girl was substantially taller, overshadowing the boy by several inches. Her hands were bandaged and her face was half concealed by thick black hair. There was an odd glow to her cheeks and an evident happiness.

The boy, though, she couldn't describe him. He was pale like her, lean and with dishwater blonde hair combed back and gelled. Where the girl was cloaked in black drapes of clothes, he was tailored and well-manicured. There was something monstrous about the both of them.

A clap of thunder erupted overhead but Emery ignored it, too fixated on the picture as if she knew the two personally. But how was that possible? Emery only knew Riley, only spoke to Riley. Riley did all the talking and negotiating, not Emery. If she had friends, it was because they knew Riley. Emery was never there to make conversation. She didn't eat, or bathe, or sleep. Riley did. She made sure Emery was taken care of and safe from the other's. And this she was plenty grateful of.

The screen went dark and her thumb quickly hit the button again, prompting the return of the picture.

She stared hard into the green eyes and full lips, darting back and forth between countenances as she struggled to regain some recollection. It was almost there, dancing on the edge of her consciousness, teasing her with faint recognition.

"Shelley!" she screamed out into the empty beach, overcome with excited realization. "And Roman!"

Emery glanced up, giggling and smiling as the rain fell into a drowning downpour. Her eyes skirted across the beach, looking to the mossy trees and rocks as if they were witness to her clarity.

"Yes!" she exclaimed, victoriously. "I remember you two!"

She pressed the phone into her chest and continued to laugh and dance upon her posterior, but the laughter quickly faded. A weeping sound fumbled over her lips and tears mixed into the rain that painted her cheeks.

_Yes_, she thought_, I remember._

And for a moment she was Emery Cole again, the eighteen year old who attended Hemlock Grove High for a short while. The girl who saw death and decay, whose mind had become riddled with insanity after seeing so much over such little time. Her head began to hurt and the waves crashed against the beach, suddenly red, pushing entrails and fragments of bodies onto the surface of her favorite beach.

A metallic tang flooded her nose, making her gag and the soft sand beneath her feet diminished, replaced by the biting cold of hard tile.

Riley was done. Now it was Emery's turn to take the reins.

But when she came to, there was blood. A nurse laid upon her side, eyes open and lifeless as she lied in her own scarlet pool.

Daisy Wicker was there, laughing and dipping her fingers into the thick substance. She brought her hand to the nearest wall and scrawled these words:

"_It was more fun in Hell. -R"_

* * *

><p>The screaming has not stopped, but it has been tamed. They have fashioned a muzzle about Miss Wicker's face and now she exerts herself in the corner of the parlor, clawing at her neck and the straps that hold the device in place. She is crying fat tears of regret and hopelessness which brings a smile to Riley's face.<p>

As for Riley, she's sitting at a table near one of the barred windows. Spring has come, and the snow is gone. The Cardinals now reside in the tree tops and other birds play in the grass and bird pools. People are outside, people like her but with more privilege. How fucking ridiculous is that? That she, Riley Cole, could not be among the privilege that get to wallow and flock about the courtyard?

She shifts in her seat, tightening her already stiff arms, crossed about her chest. She can never get them tight enough and always fears Emery will slip through. She loves Emery and she must protect her baby sister. That's what big sisters are for. And seeing as such a sister was a sergeant, she must be strict and ruthless. This will make Emery a strong woman. Perhaps even a privileged one. That way they can both play in the grass among the birds and their pools and the other patients.

Something slams into the window Riley is peering out of. It's brown and chunky, sliding down from the planes of glass onto the brick wall of the building. It's shit. Someone has thrown shit. A nurse is running across the grass now, scattering the birds and accosting the man who threw the poo.

Riley's lip curls in disgust. How is _he_ privileged and she is not? Riley doesn't throw shit! Not even Emery would do something so nasty!

The nurse contains him and drags him back inside where they cart him off for a bath. What a nut job.

Riley chuckles at this.

It's dinner time, which is why Riley is in control. Emery has been too busy devising a plan that she won't share with Riley, which pisses her off to no end. It's Riley who made it this far, keeping Emery alive and well, she should be included on any and all plots, but still the bitch won't share.

At night, Riley digs. She digs and she digs and she digs.

But she can never find what Emery is hiding. So out of spite, she leaves. This wakes Emery up and she can never go back to sleep without Riley. Sometimes Riley even goes as far as undressing and leaving. She'd done it several times during breakfast and lunch. There's a male nurse who is favoring Emery, Riley knows for sure. He smiles at her and brings her extra dessert. The first time Riley undressed and managed the switch, Emery came to utterly naked and surrounded by sixty or so nut jobs. But the shame and embarrassment Riley expected never came. Despite this, she never missed the opportunity for a little fun.

Riley outwardly chuckles, and then remembers there is poo on the window and she can no longer see out. She moves to a different table.

The male nurse is gazing at Riley. He looks more pensive than usual. Maybe he knows? Maybe he doesn't? If he knew two people lived in one body, imagine the fun!

Riley regards him with a wicked smile. Her arms loosen and she slips a hand into her sweats, parting the folds of her sex. Holding his gaze, she rubs herself.

The male nurse flushes red and looks away.

There's a pressure against Riley's eye and she winces. Retrieving her hand, she presses the heels of her hands against her eyes, stalling the switch. It's Emery, freaking out.

"Stop it!" Riley hisses, slamming her fist against the table. The clap resonates out, but there's too much commotion for it to disturb anyone but the male nurse who has returned to stare. "Stop it right now!" Riley growled.

But the stirring continues and there is a curtain falling before Riley's eyes. So she slaps herself again, and again.

The curtain diminishes and the stirring stops.

Sighing with relief, Riley sits back and shakes her head to clear the fog. She's in control again.

* * *

><p>The beach has changed. It's no longer her favorite place or even a beach at all.<p>

It's Hemlock Grove, a place too far from Harrisburg and it's filled with things she remembers, people she met and experiences she made. It's frightening and always dark. The sun is absent and the moon is always full and bright. There's things in the thicket with teeth and glowing eyes. But it's not the same Hemlock Grove a hundred miles away. It's her Hemlock because she's having trouble remembering the real one. She must get to the real one in order for the bad one to go away.

If she can get to Roman and Shelley, she can be free. She can't take it anymore in this place, under Riley's constant authority.

She is scared. She tries to resurface, but Riley won't let her, not until she tells.

But she won't.

The plan is to escape, the male nurse is going to help her. He's name is...is...

She can't remember, it's not important.

All she has to do is give him what he wants, and she can be free.

But first, she must overpower Riley.

* * *

><p><strong>[A:N] Onto the next season where Emery attempts to take matters into her own hands! Thanks everyone for sticking to this story and helping me along the way. I love you all so, so much! R&amp;R!<strong>


End file.
